Dimapur, March 2 (MExN): The Election department of Nagaland today issued clarifications over allegations in the Media that more than two-thirds of electors in the state’s electoral roll are “bogus, underage, duplicate etc.” Chief Electoral Officer of Nagaland J Alam issued a statement, a copy of which was received here today.
The election department said two phases of photography operations for the preparation of the Photo electoral roll for 2012 and field verifications by the booth-level officers have been undertaken. During the work, “considerable numbers” of ‘underage, non-residing, expired elector and multiply entry’ was detected in the roll. “The electoral registration officers of the respective districts following due procedure, deleted such entry from the E/roll. Moreover, Election Commission of India ordered a special summery revision of E/roll (dated) January 1, 2012. The draft E/roll was published on October 1, 2011 inviting claims and objections for inclusion or deletion of name in the E/roll,” the CEO said. “During the revision period, notices were given to all political parties and public inviting claims and objections by the respective electoral registration officers.”
Besides, the Election department said, booth-level officers were directed to undertake field verification for inclusion and deletion of names. “In this process, applications for inclusion or deletion of names were received by the ERO and disposed off by following due procedure,” the CEO stated. The electoral roll was finally published on February 4, 2012. The total electorate of Nagaland in 2011 was 13, 38, 559 and after the special revision of the roll for 2012, the total came down to 12, 24, 501, the department said. “The electorate and population ratio in Nagaland is 61.9% which is similar to national average. Te negative growth in the total electorate is due to the effort taken by the election officials in weeding out bogus electors from the E/roll.”
CEO J Alam says assured that the Election department is “giving all out effort” to bring out an accurate electoral roll. “Revision of Electoral Roll is a continuous process to update the roll. Hence anyone who is 18 years of age an above can filed application to the respective ERO and BLO for inclusion of names and also file application for objection to the inclusion of name in the E/roll,” the department said.
The department informed that the roll for the 60 assembly constituencies were printed and supplied to the EROs for final publication.
The ERO is to supply one soft copy and a hard copy of the electoral roll to all the recognized political parties. The recognized political parties can obtain the roll from the EROs of the districts, the CEO said.
The department also responded to allegations that “thousand of names” have been deleted from the electoral roll in I-Dimapur assembly constituency-I. The CEO referred to ‘office records’ that the total electorate of the said constituency in 2008 was 17, 800 and in 2011 it was 18, 395. “After the latest revision of E/roll 2012 the total electorate of I-Dimapur-I has increased to 20, 029. Hence the question of deleting thousand of names from the E/roll does not arise,” the clarification said.
