Final poll roll for J&K out with 772k additional voters
The final electoral roll for Jammu & Kashmir was released on Friday with the net addition of around 800,000 names, completing an exercise experts consider the final step before assembly elections are announced in the Union territory.
The final electoral roll has a total of 8,359,771 electors — 4,291,687 men, 4,067,900 women, and 184 transgender people — joint chief electoral officer of Jammu & Kashmir, Anil Salgotra said.
“There has been a net increase of 772,872 electors in the final electoral roll, i.e. a 10.19% net increase of the registered electors over the draft roll,” he told reporters.
The draft roll — which is the voter list used by the commission in the 2014 assembly election — of around 7 million voters was published in September, after which election authorities started a special summary revision (SSR) drive to add names.
At the time, then chief electoral officer Hirdesh Kumar Singh courted controversy by saying that the exercise could add 2.5 million new names. The number of new voters in the final roll is substantially less.
During the revision period, authorities received a record 1.1 million claims. The gender ratio rose from 921 in the draft roll to 948 in the final roll, Salgotra added.
He said the photo coverage in the electoral roll remained at 99.99% and that no new entry without a proper photograph was allowed. There are 57,253 persons with disability in the final electoral roll, an increase of 46% over the draft roll, he added.
“Though the special summary revision 2022 culminated with the publication of final electoral rolls in the UT on November 25, the process of continuous updation shall however continue and any eligible citizen who has been left out of the electoral roll can apply though any of the modes of registration,” Salgotra said in a statement.
After the delimitation process, the new J&K assembly has 90 seats, with 47 for Kashmir and 43 for Jammu.
Earlier, the assembly had 83 seats with 46 for Kashmir and 37 for Jammu.
The publication of the rolls is important because it is seen as the final step before assembly elections — the first in the region in six years, and the first since its special status and statehood were scrapped — are notified.
But the process ran into controversy in August after the authorities opened the application for new voters. Under the rules, people who turned 18 since the last update in the rolls could apply.
Also eligible were people who were living in a particular district for more than a year.
The move was in line with the electoral laws in the rest of the country, where only ordinary residence is enough to obtain a voter card, not permanent residence that was earlier required in Jammu and Kashmir before its special status was scrapped three years ago.
But the decision sparked a political controversy with Kashmir-based parties saying it will alter the nature and demographics of the Union Territory.
The J&K Congress expressed apprehension about possible inclusion of outside voters in the final electoral roll. The party also batted strongly for early conduct of the Assembly polls.
“Our apprehension that some non-eligible voters have been added from outside Jammu and Kashmir as per announcement appears to be true,” spokesperson of the J&K Congress, Ravinder Sharma, said.