Facing questions in the Supreme Court over forcing deleted voters to file Form 6 for inclusion in electoral rolls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday decided to provide another opportunity to electors in seven States whose Enumeration Forms were issued but not received back, resulting in their exclusion from the Draft Electoral Rolls during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Latching on to it, the Congress termed it a U-turn and said this is a “belated admission that wrongful deletion and exclusion” has taken place.
In a letter, the ECI directed the chief electoral officers of Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Nagaland to facilitate the inclusion of such electors in the final electoral rolls. The decision covers electors who were issued enumeration forms but whose forms were not received back, resulting in their exclusion from the draft rolls.
With the Election Commission deciding to provide another opportunity to electors left out of draft voter lists in seven states where SIR is ongoing, the Congress on Friday termed it a “u-turn”.
It said this is a “belated admission that wrongful deletion and exclusion” has taken place. The Opposition has accused the EC of deleting the names of crores of eligible citizens from the electoral rolls at the behest of the BJP. The poll authority has defended the revision, citing the Supreme Court’s validation.
As part of the exercise to include those left out, booth-wise lists of such electors, people whose names were deleted and who have not shifted their residence, will have to submit a pre-filled enumeration form along with a “statement” mentioning the reason why they could not submit the enumeration form earlier to the concerned poll official physically, either by themselves or through their family members.
For those who have shifted the place of residence within the State and whose names do not appear in the draft list, such voters are not required to submit Form 8. Instead, they could submit the enumeration form along with a statement providing the new address and the assembly constituency as also address proof.
In a letter dated November 6, the Commission said electors who were issued Enumeration Forms but whose names were excluded after being marked as ASDD - Absent, Shifted, Dead or Duplicate - could submit their forms again to seek inclusion in the final electoral rolls.
A total of 4,51,76,997 voters deleted in draft electoral rolls in Maharashtra (2.06 crore), Telangana (73.39 lakh), Delhi (47.56 lakh), Andhra Pradesh (44.89 lakh), Jharkhand (43.61 lakh), Haryana (33.83 lakh) and Nagaland (1.57 lakh) can use this route to get back into the electoral rolls. Final voter lists of these states are yet to be published.
The commission has directed officials to provide fresh enumeration forms to these electors and make all possible efforts to contact them through Booth Level Officers (BLOs), including house-to-house visits, WhatsApp, e-mail and SMS.
The EC has also asked officials to establish a monitoring mechanism to ensure that no eligible elector is deprived of the opportunity to be included in the Final Electoral Roll, while preventing duplicate enrolments.
The Commission said these electors would be allowed to submit their duly filled Enumeration Forms to the concerned Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) or Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO) corresponding to their current ordinary residence.
The poll body also said that homeless electors without address documents can use a field verification report from the BLO as proof of residence.