While the Election Commission (EC) has begun working to remove the duplicate EPIC with the help of UIDAI, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday also ordered a regular updation of the voter list across the country in close coordination with the birth and death registration authorities.
New Delhi:While the Election Commission (EC) has begun working to remove the duplicate EPIC with the help of UIDAI, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday also ordered a regular updation of the voter list across the country in close coordination with the birth and death registration authorities.
This will help clean up the voter database, which has many dead voters who remain on the list.
Sources said that a series of reforms are underway at various levels within under a month of the CEC’s assumption of charge and Kumar has put the entire election machinery, right up to the booth level officer (BLO), on a path to promote electors’ participation
and ensure a pleasant experience at the polling stations.
A crowd rationalisation of polling stations has already begun, ensuring that no more than 1,200 voters can cast their votes at a single centre.
Sources indicate that even the most remote rural polling stations will be equipped with basic facilities.
To address urban apathy and encourage higher voter participation, polling stations will also be set up within clusters of high-rise buildings and residential colonies.
The CEC has also directed all 36 CEOs, 788 DEOs, and 4,123 EROs to hold regular all-party meetings and interactions. These meetings, conducted nationwide, aim to address outstanding and emerging issues raised by political parties at the grassroots level. The process is set to be completed across India by March 31 with such meetings already held in over 100 districts.
In the Commission’s interactions with political parties, it was clarified that any inclusion or deletion to the draft elector list is governed by the process of appeals under relevant legal provisions for filing claims and objections, available to all political parties in the Representation of People act, 1950. In the absence of such appeals, the list as prepared by the ERO prevails.
Accordingly, the polling agents and booth agents of political parties will be apprised of the legal framework of objections and appeals on correction of entries and inclusion of names in electoral rolls.
“The offer of the Commission to train political party representatives and their appointed BLAs on the due processes as per electoral laws including claims and objections to the voter list has been welcomed by political parties. The ECI has also invited suggestions from all political parties on any and all matters concerning the conduct of elections and they can send these by April 30. The parties have also been extended an invitation to meet the Commission in Delhi at a mutually convenient time,” ECI officials said.
