Karnataka - Gulbarga   

Ensure all voters are listed in rolls, officials told

By Our Special Correspondent

The Chief Electoral Officer of the State, Abhijit Das Gupta (second from left), speaking at a review meeting in Gulbarga on Thursday.

GULBARGA, FEB. 3. The Chief Electoral Officer, Abhijit Das Gupta, today asked officers involved in the revision of electoral rolls and computerisation of electoral rolls in the State to ensure that not a single voter is left out of the rolls.

Mr. Gupta reviewed the progress of computerisation and revision of electoral rolls in Gulbarga, Bidar, Raichur, and Bijapur districts with the respective Deputy Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners, tahsildars, electoral branch officials and representatives of private organisations entrusted with the work of computerising electoral rolls.

Complaints

He said that the large number of complaints during the 2004 Assembly elections about names of voters with identity cards missing from the electoral rolls should be a lesson to the officials and extra care should be taken while names are added to, or deleted from, the electoral rolls.

He said that the Election Commission of India has issued several directions for officials to follow while revising the electoral rolls.

The Joint Chief Electoral Officer, H.C. Nagendra, said there are cases pending against the Government and the Election Commission filed by voters who had reached the age of 80 years and were denied the right to vote in the last general elections.

Taking into account the difficulties faced by these voters, he said that the Election Commission had directed the State authorities to improve the reliability of the electoral rolls by providing a separate list of voters who are over 80 years. He said that senior officials should cross-check every case by visiting the houses of these persons. Similarly in the case of single houses having more than 20 voters on the electoral rolls, senior officials should visit the houses to ensure that all registered voters live in one house.

Mr. Nagendra also said that in the case of women voters above the age of 30 years who have mentioned their father's name in the form, officials should to visit the house of the voter and verify if the woman is married or not.

Mr. Gupta said that the main electoral rolls as on January 1, 2002; the first, second and third supplementary revisions as on March 31, 2002, January 1, 2003, and January 1, 2004, respectively, have been computerised and the rationalisation of polling stations have been copied on compact discs.

The computerisation of the fourth and fifth supplementary electoral rolls as on January 1, 2004 and the special summary revision in 2005 have to be completed.

Updated

He said that the electoral rolls database has also been updated with the Electors Photo Identity Card numbers issued in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

The changes to voters' information have also been made in the electoral rolls in Kannada and English.

The election authorities will publish the information on their website www.ceokarnataka.kar.nic.in after the computerisation exercise is completed.

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Ensure all voters are listed in rolls, officials told

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