While citizens have been heading to booth level offices for the last few months to get changes/additions done to the voters’ list, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office is busy justifying the huge number of deletions.
A survey conducted by city-based electoral rolls researcher and retired naval officer P G Bhat has revealed that about 13 lakh names have been deleted in the 27 Assembly constituencies of the city his year.
Admitting the huge number of deletions, Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha told Express that corrective measures are being taken.
“We are getting the list of deleted names and we will pass them on to booth level officers and political parties. The revisions will be conducted by our staff by visiting the houses of those whose names have been deleted and all revisions will be completed by December 31,” he said.
However, the shortage of employees and technical expertise will hit the process, causing delays, as the work has to be done manually.
“We have scheduled the work in such a way that we are hoping to conclude it by December 31. We will assess the situation and in case there is a lack of staff, we will ask for more,” Jha added.
Meanwhile, residents of many constituencies are complaining about their names going missing.
“I voted in the last three elections and my name has always been on the voters’ list. When I checked the list online out of curiosity (now), mine and my wife’s names missing. When I checked with the local BBMP help centre, they said about 6,000 names were deleted from sub-ward Chikkalasandra. This is a huge number,” said Nakul Shenoy, a resident of Chikkalasandra.
Meanwhile, Bhat said these discrepancies were found in the voter list as it had not been maintained properly for years.
“Excluding Anekal, 13 lakh voters’ names have been dropped in 27 Assembly constituencies This is based on (an) extensive analysis and survey. We found that about 50 per cent of these names were dropped illegally. We had filed a PIL before the High Court... On December 12, the case was disposed of and judgment has not yet been posted. But the Chief Justice has asked the Chief Electoral Officer to make all the corrections with immediate effect,” Bhat said.
With the huge task ahead in limited time, the Chief Electoral Officer is busy analysing the data of deleted names collected from each constituency.