 "EC lays down law: Not having Aadhar no ground for electoral roll exclusion")
The Election Commission (EC) has said that no application for inclusion of name in electoral roll shall be denied and no entries in electoral roll shall be deleted for inability of an individual to furnish or intimate Aadhaar Number.
A time-bound drive is being started from August 1, for collection of Aadhaar number of the existing electors.
For linking of Aadhaar number with electoral roll data, provision has been made in the modified registration forms to seek Aadhaar details of electors. A new Form-6B has also been introduced for collecting Aadhaar number of existing electors.
"However, no application for inclusion of name in electoral roll shall be denied and no entries in electoral roll shall be deleted for inability of an individual to furnish or intimate Aadhaar Number. It has been emphasized that while handling Aadhaar number of the applicants, the provision under Section 37 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 must be adhered to. Under no circumstances should it go public," said the Commission.
The poll panel said that if the electors' information is required to put for public display, the Aadhaar details must be removed or masked. A time-bound drive is being started from August 1, 2022 for collection of Aadhaar number of the existing electors. Furnishing of Aadhaar number is purely voluntary.
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Objective of the programme is to establish the identity of electors and authentication of entries in Electoral Roll, the EC said.
As per the Commission, detailed procedure of deletion of repeat/multiple entries has been specified.
"In repeated/multiple entries reported by individual citizens, BLAs of political parties or RWA representatives, field verification is mandatorily done in each and every case. Name of the elector would be deleted in the electoral roll only at the place where he/she is not found to be ordinarily residing," it said.
For the purpose of improving the health of the electoral roll, the Election Commission has emphasised the need for field verification by the Booth Level Officers. There is a mechanism for supervision and checking for enforcing strict accountability of the work performed by different levels of electoral machinery.
EC recently directed the CEOs of all states to work out tech-enabled solutions such that the youth are facilitated to file their advance applications with reference to three subsequent qualifying dates which are 1st April, 1st July and 1st October and not just 1st January.
Pre-revision activities include rationalisation/re-arrangement of polling stations; removal of discrepancies of demographically and photo similar entries; preparation of supplements and integrated draft roll with reference to October 1, 2022 as the qualifying date. Commission has directed to take all efforts to ensure 100 per cent removal of DSEs/PSEs from electoral roll and discrepancies in EPICs (election photo identity card) during the current round of pre-revision activities.
The revision activities to begin in November include disposal of claims and objections received after publication of integrated draft electoral roll. Under the Special Summary Revision, a one-month period is available to file claims and objections in the draft electoral roll. Special camps will be organised by CEOs on weekends for which the date will be publicized by concerned CEOs. The final electoral roll will be published on January 5, 2023.
--IANS
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