The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Revised electoral roll on January 3: Sarangi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 08, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Revised electoral roll on January 3: Sarangi

By Our Tamil Nadu Bureau

NAMAKKAL, JULY 7. Provisional draft rolls will be placed before gram sabhas scheduled to meet on August 15 for possible corrections and the same day resident welfare associations will undertake the job in urban areas. Then an all-party meeting will be convened in Chennai, while similar meetings will be held in all district headquarters to discuss the draft rolls. On September 15, the draft rolls will be published. Corrections, if any, will be incorporated and the list after summary revision published on January 3 next, the Chief Electoral Officer, Mrutyunjay Sarangi, said today.

Addressing the media here, he said a total of 1,652 complaints of deletion of names had been received in Namakkal district. After enquiries, efforts were being made to include 1,391 names.

Mr. Sarangi said that over 40,000 complaints had been received from all over the State. The Election Commission's enquiry was under way, he said.

On recovery of voter identity cards from the Vaigai riverbed in Madurai, Mr. Sarangi said action would be taken based on the findings of the Election Commission official.

The Namakkal Collector, V.M. Xavier Chrisso Nayakam, took part in the deliberations.

At Erode, Mr. Sarangi held discussions with the Collector, D. Karthikeyan, on the applications for inclusion of names. A total of 1,220 applications had been received till June 21 for inclusion of names in Erode district. Of these, 1,015 were accepted.

Ways to prevent deletions soon

At Nagercoil, the Chief Electoral Officer of Kerala, P.J. Thomas, said the Election Commission was exploring the ways of preventing large-scale deletion and addition of names from rolls.

Speaking to presspersons, he said he was holding discussions with the Deputy Election Commissioners, A.N. Jha and Rajesh Agrawal, to evolve a new mechanism to avoid recurrence of the mistake. He had already visited Chennai, Tiruvallur, Madurai, Kanyakumari and Coimbatore districts and held discussions with the Collectors and other officials to get first-hand information. He would visit more districts to review the progress of the enquiry. Steps had already been taken to conduct enquiry into the memoranda submitted by both the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on large-scale deletion and addition of names.

To a query, he said there was no need for him to visit personally the Assembly segments to cross-check the enquiry, which had already been conducted by revenue officials. The Collectors had developed a mechanism to ensure foolproof enquiry. There was no question of rejecting the petitions as most of the petitioners wanted to include their names in the electoral list. Steps would be taken to include their names after ascertaining their genuineness and identity, said Mr. Thomas.

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