Portal glitch, deadline crunch: Why Telangana’s graduate MLC voter registration is in a mess

Over 6.56 lakh applications for graduate MLC voter registration in Telangana were still pending on Friday, with the enrolment deadline fixed for November 6 and the Chief Electoral Officer’s portal repeatedly failing under the load. Chief Electoral Officer C Sudarshan Reddy directed officials to expedite processing even as applicants reported blocked uploads, duplicate account blocks and repeated verification loops.

The two graduate constituencies at stake are Mahabubnagar-Rangareddy-Hyderabad and Warangal-Khammam-Nalgonda. Enrolment opened on September 28. By early November the state had received 5.23 lakh Form 18 applications. Even if every pending form were cleared, the backlog is bigger than the total received so far — which is why Congress and BRS candidates have been pressing chief electoral officer to fix the portal and stretch the deadline.

What Form 18 is and who can file it

Graduates who want to vote in these polls must enrol separately from the ordinary assembly or Lok Sabha electorate. The instrument is Form 18, the application for inclusion in the electoral roll for graduate constituencies. Eligibility hinges on holding a degree; the state CEO has warned officials against accepting fake certificates, a caution that adds scrutiny time to an already clogged process. Wanaparthy district collector Adarsh Surabhi has issued the voter list notification covering the Mahabubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Hyderabad districts within the first constituency.

Why the portal failure matters

The November 6 cut-off was already tight for a process that began on September 28. When the CEO’s website went down in the final stretch, panic spread among aspirants who had not yet filed. A Congress MLC candidate publicly urged the administration to repair the site and extend the deadline. K Kavitha, Telangana Rakshana Sena chief, made the same demand on November 2, writing to the state CEO to push the registration deadline back. ThePrint reported that the CEO office later allowed enrolment applications after November 6, effectively decoupling the final filing date from nomination day.

Who’s ready and who isn’t

Congress and BRS have stepped up readiness for the graduates’ MLC poll, with Congress fielding candidates for the graduate seats. The BJP, so far, has not announced a nominee. Neither major party has publicly questioned the validity of the process itself; the objections have centred on logistics — portal stability and the time needed to clear six-figure backlogs. With 5.23 lakh forms filed and 6.56 lakh still in the queue, the gap means entire categories of graduates could be locked out of voting if processing does not accelerate.

What happens next

The CEO’s direction to officials on Friday was to move faster, not to announce new machinery. The extended window for applications after November 6 means aspirants who were locked out by the outage still have a route in, but only if the portal holds. The count to watch is simple: 6.56 lakh pending forms against the days left before nominations close. The election calendar for the graduate seats has not been formally reset, and parties are preparing on the assumption that the vote will go ahead on schedule.