Election Commission of India (ECI) has started preparing for the crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls to be held early next year, by announcing a massive summary revision of the voters list from September 15.
The ECI has already put a ban on transfer of officials connected with the summary revision of electoral rolls. The Commission will publish the final list of the rolls on January 2, 2017.
Meanwhile, a high powered ECI team is expected to visit lucknow in the last week of September to review preparations for the Assembly polls. It would be the second visit of the ECI team in the last one month.
State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) T Vekentesh told reporters in lucknow on Thursday that preparations for the massive summary revision of electoral rolls would commence from September 15. For this, I will interact with district offficials of all the 75 district through video conferencing,” he said.
“Our focus will be on the inclusion of woman and new voters and January 1,2017 have been set as the cut off date for youths attaining 18 years of age will be enrolled in the voters list,” he said.
The people can give claims and objections till October 31 with special camps being held at four Sundays— Sep 18, 25, Oct 9 and 23— at all the polling booths.
Presently there are 13.86 crore voters in UP after deleting 33.01 lakh voters and correcting information on another 45 lakh voters. Besides 33 lakh coloured Voters Photo Identity Cards have also been printed recently.
Vekentesh said that in order to help voters in registering themselves in the voters list, call centres would be set up separately in each district. Besides, a centralised call centre in lucknow has been set up which will work from 9 am to 7 pm daily. The toll free number of this call centre will be 1800-180-1950.
“Besides, the voters can also register themselves online on the two websites of the ECI and UP CEO,” he further added.