NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs), District Election Officers (DEOs) and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to launch a special drive to identify and enrol eligible voters who were left out of the electoral rolls following the completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
The drive will cover electors whose names appeared in the pre-SIR rolls but are missing from the current rolls, as well as first-time and young voters who have not yet been enrolled.
The directive was issued following a meeting of the Commission with all CEOs on October 1.
The ECI said voter enrolment was a continuous process and that no eligible citizen should be denied an opportunity to register merely because they were not included during the SIR enumeration.
Under the exercise, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will compare the current electoral rolls with the pre-SIR rolls and prepare booth-wise lists of electors whose names have been dropped. They will then conduct house-to-house verification to ascertain the present status of these voters and facilitate their enrolment through Form 6 wherever they are found eligible.
Each BLO has been asked to cover at least 20-25 such electors a week, with the verification exercise expected to be completed within a month.
BLOs will also identify left-out eligible voters, first-time voters and young electors during their visits and facilitate their enrolment. The status of each identified elector, including those for whom Form 6 applications have been submitted, will be recorded.
The booth-wise lists will be shared with Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of recognised political parties and the concerned EROs. The EROs will receive the Form 6 applications along with field verification reports and take further action under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
The Commission has also directed electoral authorities to organise Booth Level Camps to assist citizens in submitting enrolment applications. Special camps will be conducted for people living in night shelters and labour colonies, as well as homeless persons and other marginalised sections.
The ECI said the lists of voters classified as ‘Absent’, ‘Shifted’, ‘Dead’ and ‘Duplicate’ (ASDD), prepared during the SIR enumeration, had already been displayed at local government offices and shared with political party representatives and uploaded on the websites of the respective CEOs.
At the end of the special drive, EROs will again share booth-wise lists with political party representatives, allowing them to facilitate the enrolment of any eligible voters who may have been left out.
The ECI has asked electoral officials to conduct awareness and mobilisation campaigns through educational institutions, local outreach programmes, SVEEP activities and other platforms, and to closely monitor the progress of the exercise.
Opposition parties have accused the EC of working in tandem with the BJP and disenfranchising eligible citizens by holding SIR.
Data shared by the poll authority and its state officials shows that the combined voters' list of nine states and three Union territories has been pruned by 10.2 per cent following the SIR exercise, with over 60 lakh dead voters removed.
The decision to hold a special drive also comes amid reports of differences within the EC over SIR decisions. The EC, however, said it took all SIR decisions unanimously.
(With inputs from PTI)
