AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday, 6 July 2026, demanded that Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy immediately issue a Permanent Residence Certificate to help the state's poor navigate documentation hurdles linked to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Owaisi made the demand while addressing an AIMIM-organised Volunteer Lawyers Workshop at Nampally, Hyderabad, aimed at helping voters complete SIR-related paperwork.

Context

Speaking in Urdu, Owaisi said: 'Telangana ke ghareebo'n ke paas zaroori documents nahi hain' ('The poor of Telangana do not have the necessary documents'). He called on CM Revanth Reddy to act immediately so that residents are not excluded from electoral rolls due to an inability to produce proof of residence. The workshop, convened by AIMIM, deployed volunteer lawyers to assist voters in Nampally in completing their documentation.

The SIR process, conducted periodically by the Election Commission of India, requires voters to furnish documentary proof of identity and residence. For the urban poor — particularly daily-wage workers, tenants, and informal settlers — assembling such documents can be a significant barrier to remaining on or getting added to the electoral roll.

Policy Backdrop

The Election Commission of India has conducted Special Summary Revisions and Intensive Revision drives of electoral rolls in Telangana ahead of every major electoral cycle since the state was formed in 2014. Each revision tightens eligibility checks, and each cycle has generated complaints from civic bodies and political parties about the exclusion of marginalised voters.

Telangana governments since 2014 have issued various domicile and residence certificates to facilitate access to welfare schemes and voter enrolment. Owaisi's demand for a dedicated Permanent Residence Certificate is a call to standardise and fast-track this process specifically for the SIR exercise currently under way. Political parties across India routinely organise legal-aid camps during such revision drives to reduce exclusion of vulnerable communities.

Stakeholders and Impact

AIMIM has historically drawn its core support from Hyderabad's urban poor and Muslim voters — communities that are disproportionately likely to lack formal documentation. By organising a lawyers' workshop in Nampally, the party is directly targeting one of its key voter blocs while simultaneously pressing the state government on a civic-access issue.

The demand also puts pressure on the Congress-led Telangana government under CM Revanth Reddy, which came to power in December 2023. A failure to respond could allow AIMIM to frame the Congress administration as indifferent to the documentation struggles of the poor ahead of future local body or assembly elections.

What's Next

All eyes are now on the Telangana government's response to the Permanent Residence Certificate demand and whether the state will issue a formal clarification on which documents are acceptable for SIR compliance. Any official move on this front would directly affect lakhs of voters in urban constituencies like Nampally, Hyderabad.

If the government does not act, AIMIM is likely to escalate through additional legal-aid workshops across Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana. The broader question — whether India's electoral-roll revision processes inadvertently disenfranchise the urban poor — is one that civil society groups and political parties will continue to raise as long as documentation gaps persist.