BHUBANESWAR: After deletion of around 20.13 lakh names from the draft electoral roll, the office of the chief electoral officer (CEO) RS Gopalan has intensified process for receiving claims and objections, with special focus on identifying bogus voters.
Sources in the CEO office said a direction to this effect has been issued to all 147 electoral registration officers (EROs) and 994 assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) to find out details of those who have failed to submit their enumeration forms. This is to see if there are any bogus or ineligible voters.
Out of the 20.13 lakh voters who didn’t figure in the list, about 14,000 failed to submit their enumeration forms. Some of them were not found in existence, did not submit the form within the deadline of June 28 or were not willing to register as an elector for some reasons, said an official from the CEO office.
“Accordingly, the EROs and AEROs have been asked to look into the matter and furnish constituency-wise list of such voters with details to include those who are eligible and identify if there were any bogus names in the list,” he added. In Bhubaneswar election district, out of 19,549 forms which remained uncollected, around 989 voters were untraceable or absent, while in 259 cases of uncollected forms officials have cited no reasons.
To maintain full transparency, booth-level lists of the uncollected forms have also been shared with booth-level agents (BLAs) representing all recognised political parties, officials engaged in SIR work said.
Sources said seven recognised political parties - BJP, BJD, Congress, CPI(M), BSP, AAP and NPP - have, combinedly appointed a total of 84,594 BLAs across 45,250 booths.
As per the schedule, genuine electors whose names are missing from the draft electoral roll will be able to apply for inclusion during the claims and objections period from July 5 to August 4. Hearings and verification of claims and objections will continue till September 2.
