The Hindu : Bulk applications acceptable, says Election Commission

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Bulk applications acceptable, says Election Commission

By Lalit K. Jha

NEW DELHI, JAN. 14. Relaxing its earlier rules, the Election Commission has permitted the political parties and resident welfare associations (RWAs) to submit bulk applications for inclusion and deletion of names in the voter's list.

As a precautionary measure to prevent the inclusion of any bogus name in the voter's list, it has been made mandatory for the authorised office-bearers of political parties and those of the RWAs to give a written undertaking that all applicants were genuine and eligible to be included in the rolls. The Election Commission has developed a format for this.

The Chief Electoral Officer for Delhi, Arun Goyal, said officials of political parties up to the district level and presidents and secretary of the RWAs were allowed to submit bulk applications on behalf of the people. Besides the undertaking and the applications, they would also have to submit a list of names, which they were recommending for addition or deletion from the electoral rolls.

Submission of bulk applications for inclusion and deletion of names in the electoral rolls were stopped last year after it was detected that a large number were not genuine. This was more so on behalf of the representatives of the political parties. As a result, the officials of the Election Commission accepted applications only from the applicant. This, the Commission officials, said resulted in large number of people not coming forward on their own to file their applications.

With this relaxation, the political parties would come forward to include the names of the left out voters in their area, officials said.

As per the directive, if any person other than those mentioned above wished to submit Form 7 - for raising objections - of more than seven persons, he / she would have to submit a complete list, duly authenticated by him, in addition to an affidavit duly sworn before a Magistrate verifying list of objections being submitted. "At a recent meeting, representatives of the political parties here were informed about the new development,'' Mr. Goyal said.

Meanwhile, at the direction of the Election Commission, the CEO has begun the Special Summary Revision with January 1, 2004, as the cut-off date. The draft electoral rolls were published on January 12. Between January 12 and January 29, this would be read at the RWAs and other local bodies. Special campaign would be on January 24 and 25. By February 23 all the claims and objections and printing of supplements would be over. The final electoral rolls would be published on February 28, he said.

"People who are not less than 18 years of age on January 1 and those whose names do not figure in the existing electoral rolls, but are eligible for enrolment as elector can file their claims in the prescribed form,'' he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi