Dabangs to be on UP SEC radar during polls

Dabang’  (toughs) in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh who normally manipulate the elections will be the prime focus of the State Election Commission for panchyat and local bodies (SEC) for free and fair conduct of elections of three-tier panchayat bodies commencing from next month. As part of the strategy the SEC has decided not to locate polling booth in rural areas under the influence of the ‘Dabang’ who normally punch much beyond their weight or electoral strength. The poll notification is likely to be issued by the State Government in second week of September.

The SEC has adopted a series of measures for curtailing the influence of the local toughs thus enabling the poor, downtrodden and vulnerable sections of the rural of society to cast their vote without fear or favour. The measures include — no polling booth in the areas inhibited by the dominant sections or toughies in villages. The SEC has also issued directives for massive revision of the electoral rolls and banning the people residing in urban areas from voting in Panchayat elections.

The ‘Dabangs’ who could terrorise or intimidate the rural voters are likely to be bound down under Section 107/116 of the CrPC for preventing them from creating trouble.Another major step is the elimination of the bogus voters. The existence of large number of the bogus voters immensely helped the ‘Dabang’ and the feudal elements to manipulate the elections in three tier Panchayatraj institutions. 

Strict enforcement of the UP Panchayatraj Act 1947, which forbids the residents of the urban areas from casting votes in Panchayat elections will be ensured. A senior SEC official said “UP Panchayatraj Act 1947’’ specifically provides that no person has the right to register himself/herself as voter in both rural and urban electoral rolls.  A villager can be a voter in both electoral rolls - Panchyat as well as State Assembly while a person living in urban area cannot be registered as a voter in rural area for Panchayat electoral rolls.  “This provision exists in the Act since 1947 but was never implemented, this time the SEC has ensured that this provision is implemented in true spirit and so far names of over 85 lakh bogus voters have been deleted from the electoral rolls of the Panchyats,” said a SEC official.

“SEC is conducting online monitoring of the roll revision in all 75 districts. In as many as 885 village Panchayats, more voters were detected than the total population of the village. As per the SEC standards of the total population of the village only 65 percent can be the voters. In as many as 4,200 Village Panchayats, 85 percent of the population was found to be registered as voters. All these rolls have been cleansed of bogus voters,” said an SEC official.

Conducting free and fair polls is going to be an uphill task for the SEC.  The elections will be held for as many as 885 lakh seats. This includes over 59,000 posts of Village Pradhan, village council members, members of block development committee, members of district Panchayat and chairman of district Panchayat. 

Even as the process of roll revision is under, the SEC has so far added 1.23 crore voters in rolls. The interim roll will be published on August 11. After hearing the claims and objections the final draft of the electoral rolls will be published on September 2. During the last Panchayat elections in 2010, the total number of voters was 11.15 crore which is likely to increase by 10 percent in 2015.