PUDUCHERRY: Underlining the success of the SIR exercise in Puducherry, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Wednesday said that no appeals have been filed against the final electoral roll published on February 14 following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Briefing reporters after reviewing poll preparedness in the Union Territory with officials, the CEC, accompanied by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, along with Chief Electoral Officer P Jawahar and other officials, said that under Section 24 of the Representation of the People Act, voters can file appeals against the deletion of their names.
“So far, no appeals have been received. The final list contains all eligible voters,” he stated.
The CEC noted that all political parties in Puducherry have appreciated the SIR exercise and commended the Chief Electoral Officer and the Election Department officials for their efforts.
He further said that the Election Commission would soon announce poll dates for the states going to elections after completing its review process.
The assessment has been completed in Assam and Puducherry and will cover Tamil Nadu in the next two days, followed by Kerala and West Bengal.
While deciding the polling date for Puducherry, the Commission will consider various factors, including polling schedules in the adjoining states across the four regions of the Union Territory.
This time the UT of Puducherry is going to be a model in polling. The country is already proud of Puducherry for peaceful polling and a high level of participation in voting of upto 81 to 82 %, he said, adding that this time it is expected to further go up.
"Unlike in other places, urban voters set a new record trend in polling,“ said the CEC.
Providing electoral statistics, the CEC said Puducherry has a total electorate of 9,44,244 voters. Women voters outnumber men, with 5,00,477 women compared to 4,43,595 men, and 139 transgender voters. There are 6,034 voters aged above 85 years, including 54 centenarians, and 12,204 persons with disabilities. The electorate also includes 23,033 first-time voters aged 18–19 years and 1,86,997 young voters in the 20–29 age group.
Addressing queries from officials, the CEC said voters can apply for shifting from one polling booth to another up to 10 days before polling.
The CEC said the Election Commission has introduced more than 20 new initiatives to enhance the ease of voting. For the first time, photographs of candidates on ballot units will be displayed in colour to help voters easily identify their preferred candidates. All poll-related information will be available on ECINET, an integrated application that brings together various election-related services.
No polling station will have more than 1,200 voters. All 1,099 polling stations in Puducherry will be equipped with webcasting facilities, and polling updates will be provided every two hours, he added.