Al Ngullie
Morung Express News
Dimapur | October 7
Chief Electoral Officer of Nagaland J Alam has admitted that the concurrent electoral roll for Nagaland is ‘inaccurate,’ and there is pressure from the Election Commission of India (ECI), which has set a target of ‘100% accuracy,’ on the State’s ongoing summary revision of electoral roll.
The stated matter will be one of the issues that would be discussed with the political parties in the State on October 8, Monday, when the Deputy Election Commissioner of the ECI Sudhir Tripathi would arrive in Kohima.
CEO J Alam admitted to The Morung Express Sunday, October 7, that much remains to be done even as work associated with the summary revision of poll strives to complete before the current government completes its current tenure in March 2013.
“This (summary revision of poll roll) is a continuing exercise; lots of corrections are taking place but we cannot say that this is 100% accurate,” Alam said in an interaction over Sudhir Tripathi’s visit, on Sunday. In fact, he said, at least ‘16%’ of the voters are doubtful for various reasons. “See, our photo electoral roll is just 84% so 16% entries (voters) are without photos etc. The target the ECI has given is that it has to be 100%. How we can reach 100% that we are going to discuss (with the political parties).
The CEO assured that the Election department has been ‘trying to make the corrections’ but the bigger problem is being posed mainly by the photo electoral roll. “Now that we have photo electoral roll this kind of problems are coming up.
We have done this revision exercise for the last few months; lots of corrections have taken place. We have also detected those people who were enrolled twice or double or with multiple photos or enrolled in more than one place,” Alam said in his giving instances.
For the stated reasons, the CEO said, the Election Commission is asking all the political parties to take responsibility of their electoral members. ‘…Appoint their booth or poll agents, political party representatives; that they should point out if there are any wrong entries, or anybody is left out etc so that we can try to further correct before the final publication of the electoral roll.’ The finalized summary will go for publication by January 5, 2013, Alam also disclosed.
According to the CEO, the Election Commission wants to “take feedback from the political parties also how these things can be improved further.” This Reporter queried if that statement meant that the ECI is indirectly telling the political parties to take responsibility of their voters. “It is always like that,” the official replied.
“Political parties are supposed to check each other if one party is doing wrong then another should point it out how things can improve. If there are any mistakes the political parties should check and find out.” In other words, the parties should also help the electoral process, he said.
Alam said that the current summary revision of poll rolls would complete by the end of October. Any voter who wants to clarify or object to entries and associated matter shall be given the opportunity to do so in the month of November this year. Claims and objections would be invited from the public and finally we will update the record,” Alam said.
The government official also discussed the purpose of visit Deputy Election Commissioner Sudhir Tripathi. The ECI commissioner will be in Kohima on Monday in connection with the Summary Revision of Poll. Alam said Tripathi would review the ‘poll preparedness’ of the General Election. He will also be meeting with all political parties at 4:00 pm on October 8 in Hotel Japfu in the capital. Earlier on, the Election department of Nagaland had requested all the political parties in Nagaland (Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian National Congress, Janata Party, Janata Dal United, Nationalist Congress Party, Naga People’s Front, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Trinamool Congress “to make it convenient and attend the meeting without fail.”
“He is coming here to generally review the progress of the Summary Revision (of poll). We have already started it from first of October this year. It goes on for about three months. Final publication will take place on 5th January, 2013. He came last time also. In our case, elections are also nearing so. This is the last summery revision before election,” Alam said.
