CHENNAI: The draft electoral rolls for the summary revision with January 1 as the qualifying date will be published on January 27, Chief Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta said on Monday.

He told presspersons here that the extension of deadline had become inevitable because of the "voluminous" data-entry work in Chennai, and the larger Assembly constituencies such as Tambaram, Alandur, Villivakkam and Tiruvottiyur.

Mr. Gupta made it clear that the change in schedule would not affect the final publication of rolls slated for February 27, nor would the time allowed for filing of claims and objections be reduced.

However, the time for processing of claims and objections and the preparations of manuscripts for supplements would be compressed.

According to the revised schedule, the last date for filing of claims and objections is February 11. The special campaign day is slated for February 4. Disposal of claims and objections will be taken up on February 16.

Preparations and printing of supplements of additions, deletions and corrections are scheduled for February 24.

As the Election Commission had restructured the polling station-electors ratio as 1:1200 to avoid big queues at the time of polling, the number of polling stations would increase from 45,745 to 52,000.

Incorporation of polling area maps in the rolls on the reverse side of the `Part header page' would be a new feature to help electors and political parties identify the location of the stations.

He said there would be no problem in implementing the Election Commission's guidelines on transfer of officers who were directly or indirectly connected to the election work. Such officers who had completed three years of service in the last four years at the same place would be shifted. Higher officials would not be allowed to continue in their native district and lower-level personnel would not be allowed to continue in their native constituency.

Work on providing Electors Photo Identity Cards would be taken up during February-March at designated locations.

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