‘All registered voters should have photos in the electoral roll’
DIMAPUR, OCTOBER 29 (MExN): Commissioner & Secretary, AS Bhatia, IAS, on Monday reiterated the instruction of the Election Commission of India that the electoral roll (E-Roll) should be free of any discrepancy. Bhatia, who is the state Electoral Roll Observer, was in Dimapur on October 29 to oversee the progress of the ongoing summary revision of registered electorate in the district.
The role of the Observer is also to coordinate with the NGOs and political parties to ensure that the revision is carried out transparently, while cleaning up the voters’ list, and which may also include omissions and additions, said Bhatia during an interaction with the civil society and political party representatives at the Deputy Commissioner’s conference hall. The meeting however received poor response from the political parties with only the NPF and the BJP sending representatives.
The instruction from the ECI is very clear that only genuine electors should be included. There have been many instances wherein the names of genuine electors have been removed and bogus electors included in their place. “Please ensure that this kind of discrepancy does not occur,” said Bhatia. To cite one such instance, one official disclosed that a woman’s photograph was found against the credentials of former Chief Minister and Congress MLA, KL Chishi.
Electoral roll alongwith photographs is one way of doing away with bogus names and voters. On this, Bhatia said the ECI is very clear – that photographs of all genuine voters must be available in the electoral roll against their real names. As of now, none of the five assembly constituencies in Dimapur have achieved the 100 percent target. 2 Dimapur-II AC ranks the lowest with only 57 percent of the total electorate having photos in the E-Roll. 3 Dimapur-III is faring well after achieving 83 percent of the ECI target. For 1 Dimapur-I, 4 Ghaspani-I and 5 Ghaspani-II – it is 63 percent, 73 percent and 78 percent respectively.
The ECI has stipulated November 10 as the last date for completion of the ongoing revision. A one-week notice will be given to those electors who have failed to make available their photographs. Failing to respond to the notice, officials will have no option but to strike out those names from the E-Roll, Bhatia said. Registered electors, whose photographs do not appear in the E-Roll can submit the same in their respective constituencies and polling stations attached alongwith form – 001B.
He further called on all the political parties to assign Booth Level Agents at the earliest to assist in the revision. So far, only six such agents have been appointed in Dimapur.
“The sooner we get the E-Roll clean, the better it is for us.” A clean E-Roll also means ensuring that the elector-population ratio is consistent with the figures available in the latest Census register. The national average is around 61 percent of electors out of the total population.
On the all too common incidences of one name or person appearing in more than one constituency, Bhatia said that it is high time the elector decide for good where s/he gets enrolled.
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