3 days Ago By Nisha Nambiar
Pune: Collector Jitendra Dudi has called for a comprehensive three-month drive to update voter lists across all constituencies in Pune district, officials said. "We will make concerted efforts to purify the electoral rolls by removing duplicate names, entries of deceased persons, and permanently relocated voters," Dudi said at a recent meeting with district unit heads of recognised political parties at the collector's office. The initiative comes ahead of corporation and local body polls, with Pune district having the highest voter count in Maharashtra at 88 lakh as per the last assembly election figures.
"Names of voters appearing in multiple locations will be removed, ensuring each voter is listed only once," Dudi told TOI. The verification will be conducted by booth-level officers (BLOs) who will receive specialised training to perform these tasks effectively. The administration will obtain death records from gram panchayats, municipal councils and municipal corporations to remove deceased voters from the lists.
Additionally, BLOs will conduct surveys to identify permanently relocated voters. This drive aligns with directives from the Election Commission of India (ECI), which recently instructed chief electoral officers of all states and union territories to conduct regular all-party meetings. Dudi appealed to parties to cooperate with the administration, assuring them of transparency in the process.
"If names were incorrectly included, the administration will make necessary corrections." At the beginning of the meeting, the district's election department made a presentation on its preparations for the drive. Local citizen groups have been demanding that there be focus on cleaning up electoral rolls.
"It is a non-election period now, so they can carry out this work," said Pushpa Chavan, resident of a housing society, who could not vote last election as she did not find her name in the electoral rolls. The app to search their names too should be made easy for citizens, added N Gopinath, an active member of a citizen group. The ECI had in the Delhi meeting also announced plans for digital training of nearly one crore officials in the country to ensure continuous capacity building.
"Digital training kits in multiple Indian languages will be prepared for easy absorption and effective training of frontline functionaries," an ECI official said. Another key initiative is to hold technical consultations between UIDAI and ECI experts to address within three months duplicate EPIC numbers nationwide, a decades-old problem. The poll panel emphasised improving voter experience by ensuring that no polling station has more than 1,200 electors and is located within 2 km of voters' residences.
To tackle urban voter apathy, clusters of high-rise buildings and colonies will have polling stations within their premises. Political parties have been invited to submit by April 30 suggestions on matters concerning the conduct of elections. ECI offered to train party representatives on electoral processes, including the procedure to raise claims and objections over voter lists.
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