Chief Electoral Officer K. Ravi Kumar today chaired a meeting with the officials of the Municipal Bodies of the State. Apart from the Secretary of the Urban Development Department, the Directors of SUDA and DMA were also present in the meeting. In the meeting, the CEO said that the role of the officials of the Municipal Bodies is important to make the voters of the urban area aware and voter-conscious. At present, the work of revision of the voter list is going on. As per the instructions of the Election Commission of India, the voter list is going to be published within the next two weeks. Within these two weeks, we have to achieve the target of voter registration of every person who is eligible to be a voter.
He said that the employees of the Municipal Corporation have direct or indirect access to every urban house. With their help, our BLOs and BLO supervisors can do a better job in door-to-door survey of the voter list. In these two weeks, the officials of the Municipal Body and Election have to work with a team spirit so that not a single voter of the urban area is deprived of his voting rights.
He informed that 69 additional AEROs have also been appointed in the urban areas for the work of the election. With their contribution, a better coordination situation has been created between the Municipal Body and the Election Office.
The state performed better in the last Lok Sabha elections as a result of better coordination of all the departments. Similarly, work will have to be done with a team spirit in the upcoming assembly elections as well.
Secretary of Urban Development and Housing Department, Arwa Rajkamal said that like the Lok Sabha elections, the officials of the Municipal Body will also have a better role in the Assembly elections. He said that due to many voters of the urban area changing their residences frequently, the election workers face difficulty in their verification, in such cases, coordination cooperation should definitely be done by the employees of the Municipal Body. He said that the work of running voter awareness campaigns in colleges and coaching institutes can also be done at the municipal body level.
K Ravi Kumar said that cooperation is also expected from the bodies in the work of identification of homeless people living in urban night shelters and voter registration.
SUDA Director Amit Kumar said that the field workers of the bodies should cooperate with the officials related to the election in door to door voter surveys and awareness campaigns.
On this occasion, officials and workers of the Urban Development Department, Municipal Bodies and Chief Electoral Officer's Office were present.