3.75 lakh booth-level multiple electoral roll entries in Bihar

The Election Commission (EC) has identified 3.75 lakh booth-level multiple entries in electoral rolls in the state, Bihar Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ajay V Naik said today.
"Such entries mean a person is listed multiple times in the electoral rolls of the booth. We will remove their names by the end of March. Similar exercise will be repeated in Assembly constituencies of the state in April and at district and state levels later on," he said.
The National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) has been launched in the state, Naik said, noting that the strong and efficient computer software being used by the EC was helping in the task as it has an accuracy rate of 95 per cent and saves time and paper.

He said statistically around three to four per cent of the total 6.57 crore electors could fall in the category of duplicate voters.
"Duplicate voters do not exceed 30 lakh in the state. We will embark on an exercise to physically verify and remove such names from the electoral rolls," he said.
The Bihar CEO said more transparency was needed as this was an election year for the state.

"We have requested the EC to allow short summary revision of electoral rolls for a period of one month before the polls so that no voter misses the opportunity to be a part of the election process," Naik said.

Under NERPAP, Election Photo Identify Cards would be attached with Aadhaar and mobile numbers, and e-mail addresses of voters would be included in the database.
People with multiple entries in the electoral rolls would be given an opportunity to get them removed by filling up forms.
Naik said Aadhaar penetration was at 30 per cent of around 11 crore population in the state, though he has been assured that it would improve to 75 per cent by May.
Special camps would be organised at all booths in every Assembly constituency on April 12 for this purpose. Such camps would also be organised in May, June and July, he added.