DIMAPUR, APRIL 5 (MExN): The Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation (ACAUT) Nagaland today lent full support to the Chief Electoral Officer’s initiative to clean up the state’s E-Roll.
Proposing that the ECI adopt Nagaland as a pilot project State to implement its clean E-Roll agenda, it further asked the ECI to consider introducing biometric EVMs during the next assembly elections in the State.
“For starters, the State Election Commission should issue notices to all the government servants working in the Nagaland Civil Secretariat, Kohima, to immediately delete their multiple entries of names,” it added. A press note from the ACAUT stated bogus and multiple entries of names in the E-Roll is the “root of corruption in the State.” It said that both the Census 2011 figures as well as the E-Roll numbers are “incorrect,” while claiming that census population of Nagaland “cannot be more than 12 lakhs and the E-roll cannot be more than 7 lakhs.”
“Any individual having more than 2 names in the E-Roll should be prosecuted and jailed as per the Representation of People’s Act. So far the State Election Commission has failed to apply the full force of the law,” it added.
The ACAUT said that village councils and chieftains/GBs are the “true repository of power at the village level” and hence the election commission “should reach out to this sector if at all clean E-Roll is to be a success.”
Stating that solely depending on block level officer (BLOs) “will not bring about clean E-Roll,” the ACAUT said “no BLO can delete names in the E-Roll without incurring the wrath of the village councils.”
It further urged unemployed youths drawn from all over the State “should be empanelled to assist the BLOs in identification of bogus/multiple entries of names and ghost households.” The ACAUT also demanded that names of illegal immigrants should be struck off immediately and “illegal immigrants cannot be allowed to exercise political power.”
While calling for the Aadhar Card to be “compulsorily linked to E-Roll,” it asked the ECI to appeal to the Supreme Court to make an exception for Nagaland, “given the state’s unenviable inflated E-Roll position.”
