With 5 days left for voter enrollment, tardy pace worries MLC candidates

NELLORE: With just five days left for voter enrollment in the graduates and teachers MLC poll in East Rayalaseema constituency, nearly 20,000 applications in paper are lying with tahsildars for uploading into the EC website.

Candidates say the uploading is delayed as the servers are slow in their responses. The server was down since Tuesday evening to 3pm on Wednesday.

Official sources said the speed was better after the system’s restoration.

What bothers the candidates is also the reluctance of graduates/teachers to enroll as voters by utilising the online enrollment system. Many are also not even submitting their written applications to the designated officials.

YSR Congress nominee for graduates seat Pernati Syamprasad Reddy expressed surprise over the lethargy of the educated (graduates or teachers) to enroll themselves as voters.

Voters are supposed to submit passport photos with white background along with the application. But many of them are attaching different kinds of photos, sometimes even their photos with family members. Computer operators spend time editing such photos, adding to the delay.

Graduate and former bank officer CA Kumar said he thought somebody would come home to enroll him as voter. “I shall now enroll via online,” he said.

Another graduate V. Sujith said he had enrolled in the previous election and he gave his application to a friend this time for enrollment.

As many as 1,86,000 graduates and 7500 teachers submitted their applications for enrollment as voters in the East Rayalaseema constituency till November 1. Some 2, 18,356 graduates and 20,121 teachers had enrolled as voters in the last election in March 2017.

Syamprasad Reddy said he is trying to enroll at least 3 lakh voters before the deadline.

Graduates or teachers can submit their applications at the nearest tahsildar offices in rural areas; and at municipal or tahsildar offices in urban areas. For online submission of applications, graduates or teachers can log on to https://ceoandhra.nic.in and select council constituency in E-Registration.