\'Don\'t involve village/ward volunteers in Aadhar linkage with voter list exercise\'

Nellore: Village/ward volunteers will be kept away from a major initiative to link the voters with their Aadhaar numbers all over the state.

Only designated election officials such as EROs (Electoral Registration Officers) and Assist EROs and Booth Level Officials (BLOs) are involved in the exercise which should be completed by the end of March next year.

Addressing the RDOs here on Thursday, Nellore collector Chakradhar Babu said they must accomplish the task along with the summary revision of photo electoral rolls as it helps delete double entries as also names of dead voters and fake voters.

He advised them to create awareness among voters on linking Aadhaar numbers with electoral rolls and start collecting photostat copies of Aadhar cards.

Signature of the voter is a must on the xerox copy of the Aadhaar card as proof for their consent to link with the voter's list. The xerox copies of Aadhar must be kept safely after digitalisation to prevent misuse.

Stressing that they should not force the voters to share their Aadhaar cards, he said they can collect any one of the 11 documents accepted by the Election Commission for voting to link with the voter ID if the voters are not willing to give the details of Aadhar.

BLOs should go door to door to collect the Aadhaar xerox for 3 days in a week and spend a day for data entry at the Tahsildar offices. “Use your holidays to visit houses of voters who are not available during their first visit,” he said.

The collector said special attention should be paid while entering the numbers in the Aadhar card to link with voter ID. The BLOs, EROs and AEROs should check the entries at random to ensure error-free data.

He told EROs to invite representatives of political parties for every meeting on the subject to keep them informed about the Aadhar linkage and summary revision.

He also suggested preparing videos on Aadhaar linkage with voters' ID and circulating them on social media to ensure the message reached all the voters. Joint collector Kurmanath and DRO Venkata Narayanamma were present.