Rationalisation of polling booths with over 1,200 voters to enhance accessibility
Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana C. Sudharshan Reddy has directed the District Collectors and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to complete all pre-revision activities for the upcoming special summary revision (SSR) of electoral rolls, focusing on rationalizing polling stations, filling vacant posts, and training officials, in line with the Election Commission of India guidelines.
The election officials were directed to rationalise polling stations with over 1,200 voters to enhance voter accessibility. The officials have been instructed to conduct surveys to identify new locations in high-rise buildings, group housing societies, and slum clusters. All vacant posts, including EROs, assistant EROs, and booth level officers (BLOs), must be filled immediately, with additional BLOs appointed for new polling stations likely to be set up, the CEO said. In a video conference with district collectors, the CEO said that comprehensive training on electoral laws, IT systems, and house-to-house verification is mandatory for all officials.
The Chief Electoral Officer said that the ECI's special summary revision guidelines highlighted pre-revision activities as essential for ensuring accurate and credible electoral rolls. Rationalization, as per the ECI's Manual on Polling Stations 2020, was aimed at distributing electors equitably and to ensure that families remained together at polling stations. Surveys, he said, should prioritise community halls in high-rise buildings, RWA colonies, and areas near slum clusters to improve polling access.
He said that the expected increase in polling stations necessitated appointment of additional booth level officers (BLOs) to manage verification and assist electors with forms. Training programs envisaged equipping EROs, AEROs, BLOs, and supervisors with knowledge of electoral laws and the latest IT applications for efficient data management. BLOs were tasked with house-to-house surveys to update electoral entries and facilitate form submissions.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
8 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Maha CEO refutes Rahul's rigging charges with data
Days after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi alleged 'industrial-scale rigging' in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections — claims that were swiftly rebutted by Election Commission of India (ECI) officials — the state's chief electoral officer (CEO) has now responded with data, asserting that Gandhi overlooked deletions in the electoral roll. In a post on X, the Maharashtra CEO issued a clarification on the 'misleading' claims regarding the addition and deletion of electors, stating that 'Indian electoral laws do not provide for any centralised addition or deletion of electors'. The post said: '...that there was a net increase of 32.25 lakh electors from the 2019 Assembly elections to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on account of 1.39 crore additions and 1.07 crore deletions [of electors]. Total additions between LS 2024 elections and Assembly 2024 elections were 48.82 lakh and deletions were 8 lakh. Hence, net addition in electors after LS 2024 was 40.81 lakh. [Within this] more than 26 lakh of the additions were young electors in the age group of 18 to 29 years.' The CEO added that the gross addition of electors from the 2019 assembly elections to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls stood at 13.9 million, while the additions between the LS 2024 and assembly 2024 elections amounted to 488,200 — excluding deletions. In an op-ed published on June 7, Gandhi claimed that the voter roll for the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections had been inflated with fake entries. He wrote: '...number of registered electors in Maharashtra in the 2019 Vidhan Sabha elections was 8.98 crore, which rose five years later to 9.29 crore for the May 2024 LS elections. But a mere five months later, by the November 2024 Vidhan Sabha elections, the number had leaped to 9.70 crore. A crawl of 31 lakh in five years, then a leap of 41 lakh in just five months.' However, people familiar with the ECI's process said that Gandhi failed to account for deletions from the electoral rolls — an integral part of the revision process. An ECI source said: '...the electoral rolls were prepared polling station wise, after field verification by nearly one lakh booth level officers and the information is shared by the agents of political parties. Any addition/deletion/modification in electoral rolls happens through statutory forms filed by eligible persons. Therefore the deletion of 1.39 crore electors between 2019 assembly elections and 2024 Lok Sabha elections as well as before the 2024 assembly elections happened after ground verification, but Rahul Gandhi seems to have not taken this into account.' In the same article, Gandhi also contended that the number of registered electors in Maharashtra assembly elections — 97 million — exceeded the state's adult population of 95.4 million, based on government projections. In response, the Maharashtra CEO said: 'Regarding the issue of number of electors being more than projected adult population, any population projection through a statistical tool cannot be a basis for stopping or allowing addition or deletions in the electoral roll, as registration of electors is done based on the actual individual forms received from the public, field verification and decision taken on each form by ERO, with sharing of information with all recognised political parties at every step, as per the prescribed statutory procedure.' The CEO further noted that booth-level agents from every recognised political party are involved in the day-to-day revision of electoral rolls. '[In Maharashtra assembly elections] Indian National Congress (INC) appointed 28,421 BLAs in Maharashtra. No serious objection was raised by any BLA of the INC or by candidates of INC till election results were declared. It was only after the results that INC is raising this issue,' the post added.
Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Hindustan Times
Gyanesh Kumar's first speech since accusation
Speaking for the first time since Congress leaders accused the Election Commission of rigging the 2024 Maharashtra polls and manipulating electoral rolls, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar defended the process, calling it one of the world's most transparent democratic exercises. Delivering a keynote at the Stockholm International Conference on Electoral Integrity in Sweden on Tuesday evening, Kumar said India's electoral exercise-- including the annual revision of rolls--is conducted under intense public and institutional scrutiny, describing it as 'an act akin to concurrent auditing at every stage.' The event, hosted by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), was attended by over 100 participants from election management bodies representing nearly 50 countries. Kumar highlighted the 'robust mechanisms' underpinning India's electoral process, which he said have ensured its credibility for decades. 'There is a process of statutory sharing of India's electoral roll with all recognised political parties every year during revision and before every election since 1960. It includes provisions for claims, objections, and appeals — making it one of the most rigorous and transparent electoral exercises globally,' said Kumar, as quoted in an ECI press release. 'This mechanism plays a vital role in reinforcing electoral credibility year after year.' He also reaffirmed the Election Commission's role in supporting capacity-building initiatives for election management bodies worldwide. Kumar described India's democracy as the 'strongest and biggest in the world,' calling Indian elections 'a wonder' for their unmatched diversity and scale. Back home, however, the Election Commission faces mounting criticism from the Congress party. The Opposition has questioned the sharp increase in voter turnout on November 20, 2024, as well as a sudden spike in the number of electors in Maharashtra. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, in a recent op-ed, accused the ECI of enabling 'industrial-scale rigging' and described the Maharashtra elections as a 'blueprint for rigging democracy.' While the Commission dismissed the allegations as misinformation, neither the ECI nor the CEC had issued an official response until now. In his Sweden address, Kumar also elaborated on the logistical scale of elections in India. According to the ECI, over 20 million personnel--including polling staff, police forces, observers, and party agents--were involved in conducting the recent parliamentary elections. 'At the time of elections, the ECI becomes the world's largest organisation, surpassing the workforce of many national governments and global corporations. It ensures that nearly one billion Indian electors are able to exercise their franchise freely,' said the ECI press note quoting Kumar. He also traced the evolution of India's electoral system, from 173 million electors in 1951–52 to 979 million in 2024, and from just 200,000 polling stations in the early years to more than 1.05 million today. 'The 2024 general elections saw the participation of 743 political parties-- including six national and 67 state parties--and 20,271 candidates. Elections were conducted across the country using 6.2 million Electronic Voting Machines reaffirming the Commission's ability to conduct inclusive, efficient, and secure elections,' the release added.
Indian Express
a day ago
- Indian Express
33% seat reservation: Govt looks at quota for women in next Lok Sabha polls
The Modi government intends to roll out reservation of seats for women, which is linked to the delimitation exercise, in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, highly-placed sources said Wednesday. Official sources said the government is targeting implementation of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam that reserves one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies in the next election. 'The Census has been announced and the other steps will follow. The women's reservation Bill is linked to the delimitation process. We are aiming to roll it out in the next election,' sources in the government said. According to the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023, the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, passed in September 2023, reservation of one-third of seats for women in Lok Sabha and state Assemblies shall come into effect after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken based on figures from the first Census that is conducted after the enactment of the Act. Earlier this month, the government announced that the process of data collection for the Census, along with caste enumeration, would commence next year and offer a snapshot of the country's population as on March 1, 2027. For women's reservation to become a reality in the next Lok Sabha elections, delimitation will have to be completed well in time for the Election Commission of India to conduct the 2029 polls on the basis of the new delimitation of constituencies. Government sources claimed that the Census data will be available faster than the previous time with the advancement of technology – the enumeration will be conducted digitally using mobile applications for data collection and a central portal to collate the details and manage it. The Census data is significant for delimitation because the process of readjusting the seats of Lok Sabha and state Assemblies and redrawing their territorial boundaries is expected to be launched once the data is available. There have been concerns among southern states regarding delimitation changing the proportion of seats allocated to various states in Lok Sabha to conform to the constitutional principle of 'one person, one vote, one value', which will lead to a jump in seats for the northern states where populations have grown briskly since 1971 and reduce the relative weight of southern states where the population rate has slowed down in the same period. Senior ministers have said that the concerns expressed by the southern states will be addressed, and that no room for complaints will be left. In February this year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that the southern states would not lose even a single seat on a pro-rata basis, making A Raja of the DMK ask whether pro-rata meant population-based or based on the present number of constituencies. Later, at the RSS's Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha meet at Bengaluru, RSS joint general secretary K Mukunda said the share of seats of the southern states would be maintained as it is in case the number of Lok Sabha seats is increased via delimitation. However, NDA ally Upendra Kushwaha has already made 'justice for Bihar', through allocation of seats as per present population share, as a poll plank for the Bihar Assembly elections, taking the line multiple times in Bihar and Delhi. For delimitation to happen after the next Census, Parliament will have to pass a Delimitation Act, which will constitute a Delimitation Commission for the exercise that is likely to lead to an increase in Lok Sabha seats. Article 82 of the Constitution mandates readjustment of seats after every Census. However, the present Lok Sabha reflects the population figures of the 1971 Census because the delimitation of seats was frozen in 1976 for 25 years, and in 2001 for another 25 years, through Constitutional amendments, with the Vajpayee government stating in 2002 that this would provide an incentive for family planning. If another Constitutional amendment is not passed by Parliament by 2026, the freeze on delimitation will automatically be over. Under Article 81(2) (a) of the Constitution, 'there shall be allotted to each State a number of seats in the House of the People in such manner that the ratio between that number and the population of the state is, so far as practicable, the same for all States'. The only exception to this rule are small states whose population do not exceed six million.
