REDUCTION IN VOTERS DOESN’T MEAN MISSING VOTERS, SAYS POLL BODY

The Election Commission of India on Monday defended advancing the summary revision of voters in Telangana state in view of the early polls to the Legislative Assembly.

The EC contended that the reduction in the number of voters by 20,29,490 between the electoral rolls used for the 2014 general elections and the draft rolls published on September 10, 2018, cannot be construed as missing voters.

It said there were a number of reasons for the deletion such as migration of voters to AP.

The Election Commission of India on Monday defended advancing the summary revision of voters in Telangana state in view of the early polls to the Legislative Assembly.

The EC filed an affidavit stating that the Supreme Court in the Special Reference No.1 of 2002 (which centred on the Gujarat elections) had ruled that the poll panel has to hold elections to a prematurely dissolved Assembly at the earliest.

“On the premature dissolution of the Legislative Assembly, the Election Commission is required to initiate immediate steps for holding election for constituting Legislative Assembly on the first occasion and in any case within six months from the date of premature dissolution of the Legislative Assembly,” the Election Commission quoted the top court as stating.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice S.V. Bhatt while dealing with a petition by former minister Marri Shashidhar Reddy challenging the inaction of the EC in deleting the duplicate or bogus names and advancing the summary revision of voters lists had on Friday directed the EC to file the counter affidavit on the allegations.

The EC contended that the reduction in the number of voters by 20,29,490 between the electoral rolls used for the 2014 general elections and the draft rolls published on September 10, 2018, cannot be construed as missing voters.

It said there were a number of reasons for the deletion such as migration of voters to AP and identification of ineligible voters during the intensive verifications carried out under the National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) and Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls (IRER) in 2015 and 2017.

The poll panel said that consequent to the purification programme, a net deletion of 24,30,166 names was recorded in 2016.

The EC said that following intensive revision of electoral rolls taken up from April 1 to September 27, 2017, the voter strength came down from 2,62,06,825 to 2,53,27,785 with January 1, 2018, as the reference date.

The EC brought to the notice of the court that in the draft electoral roll published on September 10, 2018, the elector strength was increased by 8.08 lakh voters from 2.53 crore to 2.61 crore.

The EC submitted that the petitioner’s contention that there were 30.13 lakh duplicates was a mere baseless apprehension and the petitioner had not mentioned the source of information /database. In the absence of such information the numbers can only be considered as speculative and imaginary.

Stating that the claim that the Election Commission did not take any steps to rectify the defects and discrepancies in the electoral rolls despite being aware it as false, it said that even after the final publication of the revised rolls, the voters can submit claims and objections and changes are permitted till the last date for making nomination for the elections.

The bench posted the matter to October 12 and directed the petitioner file his reply.