Political parties urged to cooperate in transparent electoral roll preparation

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

All political parties should cooperate in preparing a transparent electoral roll and submit written objections with supporting evidence if they find discrepancies in the draft roll, Visakhapatnam district Roll Observer S. Bhargavi said on Monday.

Ms. Bhargavi, who is also Director of Tribal Welfare, reviewed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)-2026 process at a meeting with representatives of recognised political parties and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), along with District Collector Abhishikth Kishore, at the Collectorate.

She reviewed reports on the issue and collection of forms, publication of the draft roll, notices to voters who had not returned forms, and the identification of voters who had died or migrated. She also reviewed the status of Forms 6, 7 and 8. She said 1,04,866 persons aged 18 and 19 were estimated to be eligible for enrolment based on the projected 2026 population, but only 4,787 had been registered. She directed officials to conduct a special drive to enrol eligible young voters.

Ms. Bhargavi said voter enumeration in the district was better than in other districts and appreciated the efforts of the Collector and officials. She directed officials to accelerate voter enrolment and conduct field-level verification of voters who had died, migrated or failed to return forms.

She said any one of the 11 official identity documents prescribed by the Election Commission could be considered for identifying voters whose records had not been mapped and called for greater awareness among voters.

She urged political parties to cooperate at the booth level and submit written complaints with supporting evidence on corrections and duplicate enrolments. EROs were asked to expedite disposal of pending Forms 6, 7 and 8 and prepare constituency-wise action plans.

Mr. Kishore asked officials to scrutinise the reasons and supporting documents when absent, migrated or deleted voters apply afresh through Form 6. He also asked political parties to appoint booth-level agents for 163 newly established polling stations.

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.