Nearly 95,000 voters in Uttarakhand who were marked “ineligible” during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls have had Form-7 applications generated in their names, the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office said on Thursday.
The CEO’s office said these applications were generated through the system after Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) or Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) marked the voters as ineligible. The voters had either failed to provide the required documents or could not appear before the election authorities themselves or through a family member. The CEO’s office has also directed district election officers and EROs to organise a special campaign after the final roll is published to help eligible voters apply for inclusion.
It maintained that the SIR exercise was being carried out according to the prescribed rules and in a transparent manner. The office also said regular meetings were being held with recognised political parties at the assembly, district and state levels, where information related to the revision of electoral rolls was being shared.
Around 1.73 lakh Form-7 applications have been received in Uttarakhand during the SIR exercise so far. Of these, more than 95,000 relate to voters placed in the “ineligible” category, according to the CEO’s office.
Form 7 is used to seek deletion of a name from the electoral roll. Under the process, once an ERO marks a voter as ineligible and selects Form 7 for deletion on the ERO.net system, the application is generated and there is no provision to roll back the action, the CEO’s office said.
The clarification came amid questions from the opposition Congress over the manner in which Form-7 applications were generated during the revision exercise.
Uttarakhand Congress in-charge Kumari Selja questioned how the applications could be generated at the discretion of EROs and AEROs when the same officials were also responsible for determining whether voters were eligible.
Selja claimed that 42,030 Form-7 applications were linked to AEROs, while another 22,443 were linked to EROs. She also questioned the difference between the number of Form-7 applications generated in Uttarakhand and Punjab and sought details of the process followed in the state.
The draft electoral roll was published on July 14, while the process of hearing claims and objections is currently underway. The final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on October 3.
The CEO’s office said being marked “ineligible” during the SIR process does not permanently prevent a person from being included in the electoral roll.
Voters whose names are left out can submit Form 6 after the publication of the final electoral roll on October 3. They will have to provide the documents prescribed by the Election Commission and can seek inclusion before the election, the office said.
