Our Correspondent
Kohima | November 4
Kohima Deputy Commissioner W. Honje Konyak made an appeal to all concern to come forward and give their cooperation to the district election machineries for preparing clean electoral rolls “which is the foundation for conduct of free and fair elections.”
Honje, who is also District Election Officer, Kohima said that in order to achieve the target of enrolling all eligible citizens of India for age groups of 18 years and above as on Ist January 2013 in the electoral rolls with photographs for ethical participation and thereby enhancing the quality of Indian Democracy, a special campaign of Systematic Voter’s Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) was launched by Election Commission of India.
He said the Commission still finds a large number of missing voters on the rolls, and registration of newly eligible 18-19 age voter is yet to reach even half way mark. Nationally many of this missing is women.
In Kohima district out of 1, 54,000 and around 54,000 (27%) electors are yet to submit photos to the Kohima District Election Office for which opportunity of photo submission is given upto 20 November 2012 and thereafter defaulters’ names shall be struck from the electoral rolls.
It may be mentioned that Section 17 and 18 of the Representation of the People Act 1950 prohibit any person registering names in the electoral roll more than once.
The DC said that similarly one elector taking multiple photographs under same or different names in same or different polling stations constitute violation of the Act which is punishable with imprisonment or with fine or with both.
Also vide Section 31 of the said Act it was required of every elector to furnish correct particulars in the roll. Those electors who violate the provisions are liable for punishment with imprisonment up to one year.
Recently, Honje said, everyone was excited to see the NBCC pledge on clean election in Nagaland. “If everyone rally behind the Church and give full cooperation to the district election machineries, we can make a big change as 98% of our population is Christian.”
For free and fair election, an accurate and error free electoral roll is the most important pre-requisite, he said adding that some of the electoral malpractices like bogus voting and impersonations can be attributed, to large extent to the defective e electoral roll, the DC said.
For enhanced participation of electoral in the electoral process and reducing the electoral malpractices, it is essential to improve the registration process which will in turn increase the fidelity of the electoral rolls, he added.
