The office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Jharkhand released the final electoral roll on Thursday which was prepared keeping in view the forthcoming lok Sabha elections. The final roll is based on the cut off date of January 1, 2014.
“The roll was scheduled to be published on January 6. However, we wanted more time for correction of errors which the Election Commission agreed. The final roll is available at all concerned offices,” said Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) PK Jajoria.
As per the final roll published, Jharkhand has witnessed a jump of 13,84,233 in the number of eligible electorates during the revision process which also included deletion of erroneous data from the database of voters besides correction of data. With added figure, the number of eligible voters in the State has gone to 19,94,86,83 which comprise 10,50,84,20 male and 94,40,263 female voters.
Interestingly, women voters in the State seem more inclined to participate in democratic processes compared to their male counterparts. As many as 7,38,428 new female voters have made their way into the final roll in comparison to 6,45,805 new male voters. East Singhbhum topped the chart with 1,62,765 new additions during the just concluded summary revision.
While women marched ahead in terms of getting their name listed on the electoral roll, their male counterparts were way ahead in terms of getting their name omitted from the roll. While 17,5,844 male had their name erased from the final roll, around 15,7,613 women had to meet the same fate. Notably, the final roll has been published by deleting around 33,3,457 with Ranchi leading among the districts with 93,0667 deletions in the summary revision process.
Significantly, around 99.57 per cent voters have photos in the electoral roll and around 99.51 per cent voters possess Electoral Photo Identity Card. “We can now say that Jharkhand is among the leading states in India,” maintained the CEO. Nonetheless, the State is still to enroll all eligible voters in the electoral roll which is highlighted by the gap in the electoral population (EP) ratio. The summary revision had set a target of 58.06 however it was restricted at 56.84. The EP ratio indicates the number voters in the total population.