CHENNAI: Citing the Supreme Court’s observations in the Bihar special summary revision of electoral rolls, a delegation of DMK MPs on Thursday urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to accept Aadhaar and ration cards as valid documents to establish a voter’s place of residence and date of birth. Almost all eligible voters possess at least one of these documents, and their inclusion would make the revision process more effective, they said.
The MPs also suggested various measures to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to ensure free and fair elections, including deletion of names of deceased voters from the rolls, better coordination between booth-level officers (BLOs) and booth-level agents (BLAs), and publication of handbooks in vernacular languages on the ECI website.
A delegation of DMK MPs NR Elango, TM Selvaganapathy, Thanga Tamil Selvan, KRN Rajeshkumar, and S Murasoli made the representation during a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Dr Vivek Joshi and Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu in New Delhi.
They said the ECI’s announcement on May 1 to delete deceased voters from the rolls by obtaining the list from the registrar of Birth and Death is yet to be implemented.
The delegation said the ECI’s 2019 guidelines, which allowed for simultaneous counting of postal ballots and EVMs without a formal amendment to the Conduct of Election Rules, had created confusion and could compromise fairness.