Dharwad gears up for electoral roll revision

The district administration in Dharwad is all set to begin the process of revising the electoral rolls in the district and it has set January 21 as the deadline for the officials concerned to revise the list.

Following observations made by Central Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami at a meeting of deputy commissioners held at Bangalore, the district administration, which completed the process of preparing the draft electoral roll has again set out on the task of reviewing the list to no eligible voter's name is left out there are no bogus voters in the list.

Deputy Commissioner M S Srikar held a meeting of nodal officers, booth level officers and assistant electoral registration officers at Dharwad and Kalghatagi during the weekend, while HDMC Commissioner Ajay Nagabhushan and assistant commissioner Mahantesh Bilgi held similar meetings at Hubli and Navalgund respectively.

Booth-level officers, supervisory officers, nodal officers and assistant electoral registration officers have been appointed by the DC who is the electoral officer for the district.

The nodal officer will be in charge of three supervisory officers. The booth-level officers have been asked to conduct a house-to-house verification of names in the draft voters' list by January 20.

They will visit each house and find out if any names need to be addedôdeleted. The names of the dead, migrated, shifted, non-existent persons will be deleted suo motu from the list after giving individual notices to the family. The BLOs will verify the photo identity cards with the voters' list and see if any corrections to be made in it.

Deputy Commissioner M S Srikar told Business Standard here that booth level officers will examine the applications for addition/deletion while the supervisory officers will examine 10 per cent of the applications, the nodal officers 3 per cent and the assistant electoral registration officers (AERO) will examine 5 per cent applications.

In case of the applications for addition/deletion, the AERO will review 10 per cent of the applications.

The DC said in case of a high number of additions/deletions in a particular booth the BLOs will have to examine all applications.

After verifying the rolls and incorporating the changes, the BLOs, supervisory officers, nodal officers and AEROs will have to submit a certificate on January 21 saying they have checked the list thoroughly and they were correct in all respects.

Srikar said he would convene a meeting of all parties at his office on Monday to provide them the schedule for the electoral roll review. The draft electoral roll incorporating the necessary changes would be notified on February 7 and the copies supplied to all parties.

They would also be given the lists of additions/deletions separately. Objections, if any, could be filed with supporting documents within 15 days of notifying the draft roll. The final list will be notified in March 2008.