BHUBANESWAR: The final electoral roll for the urban local body (ULB) polls will be ready by February-end.Announcing this on Wednesday, State Election Commissioner (SEC) AP Padhi said that the draft electoral roll will be first released on February 10. Objections on it can be raised before the election officer between February 11 and 16 which will be verified on February 18. The revised voters list will be released on February 24 and submitted to the Commission by February 28, he added.
The SEC said that since the Assembly constituency-wise electoral roll database was prepared on January 1, no new voters will be added to the list. However, names found missing during the preparation of ward-wise electoral rolls for the ULB polls can be restored. “Correction will be allowed if the name of a voter from a particular ward is mistakenly added in another ward,” he added.
Padhi informed that the draft electoral roll will be published after splitting of the wards and for the first time, both soft and hard copies of the draft will be shared with the national and State-level parties.The State government also released the final reservation list of wards in all municipalities and Notified Area Councils (NACs). Out of a total 1,756 wards in municipalities and NACs in the State, 668 wards have been declared unreserved. While 122 wards have been reserved for scheduled caste (SC), 49 are for scheduled tribes. Besides, 613 wards in all civic bodies have been reserved for women. Similarly, 171 wards have been reserved for SC women and 133 for ST women.