New electoral roll for J&K shows 2.3L more voters
BENGALURU: The stage is set for the Assembly polls in the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir with the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the UTs publishing the final electoral roll of J&K on Monday that showed an addition of more than 2.31 lakh voters. Out of the 86.93 lakh voters, 42.58 lakh are females and 44.35 lakh males, with more than 2.31 lakh voters added to the J&K’s final electoral rolls.
A statement issued by the office of the CEO said that the final electoral rolls have been published in all polling stations, offices of Electoral Registration Officers, and District Election Officers and hosted on the website of the CEO. The release of the final electoral roll of J&K will pave the way for holding of various polls in the UT.
Around 86,000 names have been deleted from the previous list because of death, shifting or other reasons besides correction in details of 1.45 lakh electors during the process, said sources.
According to the final roll issued, the elector population ratio has improved from 0.59 to 0.60 and gender ratio from 924 to 954. “As per the detailed directions of the Election Commission of India (ECI), the process of special summary revision of electoral roll with qualifying date as 1st January, 2024 was carried out. The process involved two major stages]. The first stage was training of EROs, AEROs, BLOs etc and rationalisation of polling stations, which was carried out from June to September, 2023. As per the criteria of the ECI, 259 new polling stations were created by following a process of consultation with the political parties,” read the CEO’s statement.
The last assembly elections were held in the state of J&K in November-December, 2014. In August 2019, the Centre abrogated Article 370, which granted a special status to the erstwhile state of J&K. Subsequently, the state was bifurcated into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
In December last year, a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court while unanimously upholding the Union government’s decision to repeal the provisions of Article 370, had directed for restoration of statehood for J&K at the earliest and holding of assembly election by September 30, 2024.