Hyderabad: Deputy chief minister Bhatti Vikramarka on Wednesday said the demands for a return to the ballot paper system in elections should be considered, and that restoring public confidence in the electoral process should be the priority.“The Election Commission has the primary responsibility of ensuring public confidence in the electoral system. People should have the assurance that elections are being conducted freely, fairly and transparently,” Bhatti said while speaking at a conclave in Kochi.“Electoral victories and defeats are often decided by narrow margins of 2,000, 5,000 or 10,000 votes. In such circumstances, deletion of 25,000 to 40,000 votes in the name of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) could have an impact on election results,” he said.He alleged that in the age of social media, it has become easier to identify the political preferences of voters in a constituency. According to him, there are concerns that such information could be used to identify specific voters and that centrally coordinated Form-7 applications could be filed seeking deletion of their names from electoral rolls.Bhatti said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had been raising concerns over the issue for a long time and alleged that the EC has not done enough to dispel the doubts.Responding to the criticism that the Congress questions the EC only when it loses elections, Bhatti said he was speaking first as a citizen. Political parties can win or lose elections, but ensuring public confidence in the electoral system is a fundamental responsibility of the Election Commission, he said.Bhatti said an increase in voter turnout does not by itself address concerns about public confidence in the electoral process. People should be confident that their votes are correctly registered and that their votes are being counted as cast, he added, claiming that concerns over loss of votes had emerged in several states.The deputy CM rejected the description of Telangana’s welfare programmes as mere ‘freebies’. He said expenditure on welfare schemes should instead be viewed as an investment in human resources that can have a direct or indirect impact on the state’s GSDP.He said the Centre should view India as a ‘Union of states’ and follow the spirit of cooperative federalism. “I had raised the concerns of southern states at GST meetings as well and stressed that resource distribution should take into account the contribution made by individual states to the national economy. Competition among Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh for investments is healthy, but states that contribute significantly to the country’s economic growth should not be disadvantaged,” he said.Bhatti also appealed to leaders who had left the Congress to return to the party and work together to strengthen the country.The deputy CM said he was working with chief minister A Revanth Reddy with full coordination. “We regularly discuss issues, exchange views and arrive at decisions aimed at implementing the Congress ideology, welfare and development in the state. There are no differences. We are working together,” Bhatti added.
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