2.5 Lakh Names Re-Enrolled In Electoral Polls: CEO

Hyderabad: Chief Electoral Rajat Kumar on Saturday announced that 2.48 lakh names were re-enrolled in the electoral polls recently.

Mentioning that 35 lakh names of voters were deleted during the controversial National Electoral Roll Purification of 2015, he said that after field-level verification, the names were re-enrolled while the deleted names were found to be either dead, duplicated or changed their addresses permanently.

The Chief Electoral Officer, however, said that these names were not reflected in the electoral list for the recent Assembly polls.

According to Mr Kumar, the State Election Commission received 6,68,858 applications by March 15 for inclusion in the electoral rolls with the number of voters expected to cross three crores ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

With voters to be provided with election photo identity cards (EPIC), the

The Booth-level officers have been instructed to distribute election photo identity cards (EPIC), and voter slips for the voters by April 5.

In case the electors don't have EPIC, they can produce these identity documents - passport, driver's licence, identity cards with photograph issued by Central or state governments, PSUs, or public limited companies, bank passbooks with photograph, PAN card, smart card issued by RGI under NPR, MNREGA job card, official identity cards issued to MPs/MLAs/ MLCs, health insurance smart card issued by labour ministry, pension document with photograph, and Aadhaar card.

So far, the first level checks have been conducted in most of the districts, barring Karimnagar, Siddipet, Vikarabad, Mahabubnagar, and Suryapet. Bharat Electronics Limited and ECIL have provided the ballot units(BU), control units(CU) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails(VVPATs).

In regard to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), Rajat Kumar said that the Election Commission is not using the EVMs of the 14 assembly segments which were under legal cognizance during the recently concluded Assembly polls.

He informed that poll staff has been directed to not expose the VVPATs to sunlight directly adding that illegal assets worth Rs. 5 crore has been seized by the EC since the implementation of the Model Code of Conduct.

Also Read: My Hands Are Tied : Rajat kumar