The Election Commission has given electors in seven states another opportunity to be included in the Draft Electoral Rolls after they were marked as Absent, Shifted, Dead or Duplicate, or after their Enumeration Forms were issued but not received during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision exercise.
The directions cover Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Nagaland. The decision is intended to address cases in which eligible electors were left out of the draft rolls during the revision process.
Under the exercise, electors categorised as Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate are identified through the electoral roll revision process. The latest direction also covers people whose Enumeration Forms were issued but were not received back, resulting in their exclusion from the Draft Electoral Rolls.
The Election Commission has instructed officials to provide another opportunity to these electors to seek inclusion. It has also asked election authorities to establish a monitoring mechanism to ensure that no eligible elector is denied the opportunity to be included in the Final Electoral Roll.
The directions are significant for urban areas, where population movement, changes of residence and duplicate records can complicate electoral roll maintenance. The Commission’s instructions seek to address exclusion while retaining checks against duplicate enrolments, according to the report.
The Special Intensive Revision is being conducted across the seven states named in the direction. The latest measure does not remove the requirement for officials to verify electoral records, but asks them to ensure that eligible electors affected by the draft-roll process receive an additional opportunity before the Final Electoral Roll is prepared.
The Election Commission has not specified in the supplied report a separate deadline or the precise procedure through which affected electors must make use of the opportunity. The next step will be the implementation of the monitoring mechanism by officials in the seven states and the processing of eligible claims before publication of the Final Electoral Roll.
