The Election Commission is undertaking a drive for error-free electoral rolls for the Assembly elections of Uttarakhand slated next year, said the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Uttarakhand, Radha Raturi while addressing media persons here on Wednesday.
She informed that the commission has set up a deadline of August 20 for this task. Raturi said that from March 1 this year, National Electoral Rolls Purification (NERP)-2016 and Rationalisation of Polling Stations drives are being undertaken on the orders of the Election Commission (EC).
A meeting of the officials of State election commission, district election officers and public representatives was organised at State Secretariat on Wednesday. Raturi informed that all the representatives were asked to submit their suggestions till May 31. The CEO said that name of person should not be registered in more than one polling station and name of such person is stuck off from the rolls.
She, however, added that it is now decided to stop suo-motto deletion of name from voter list; now such people would be informed that their names are registered in more than one place and there is a need to delete it from one or other place. This step is being taken to address the common complaint of the voters on the voting day that their names are stuck off. The Booth level Officers would undertake a house to house verification of the names in the voter list from July 1 to July 20.
The CEO informed that the State has 10344 Polling Stations (PS) and 300-400 new stations would be set up. The CEO said in the State there are 54 PS where more than 1500 voters are registered similarly 773 PS has less than 300 voters.
The EC envisages that a new PS can be set up if the number of voters in one station has risen to more than 1500 or where the voters have to travel more than 2 KMs to cast their votes. New PS is scouted when the building of the existing station becomes dilapidated. The CEO said that one can now search his/ her name in the voter list by logging on to official website of the EC ceo.uk.gov.in. She added that now new applicant can download the Form 06 (application form) from the website.