Over 1 lakh electors deleted as part of SIR in U.T.

The draft electoral roll of the Union Territory published on Tuesday after the Special Intensive Revision has indicated that the names of around 1.03 lakh electors have been deleted on grounds of death, shifting/absent, duplication and non-submission of enumeration form for various reasons.

Announcing the completion of first phase of SIR in Puducherry, Chief Electoral Officer P. Jawahar told media that out of the 10,21,578 electors in the Union Territory, around 9,18,111 have submitted their enumeration forms reflecting overwhelming participation of voters in the revision process. Of the total 9.18 lakh electors who found place in the draft roll, 7.66 lakh electors are in Puducherry district and the remaining 1.51 lakh voters are in Karaikal district, he said. 

As many as 80,645 electors have been identified as shifted/absent during enumeration, 20,798 identified as dead and 2,024 electors found to have made entry in the rolls at multiple places. The maximum number of electors deleted are in Kamaraj Nagar, Raj Bhavan, Karaikal North and South constituencies. The least number of deletions happened in Mahe and Bahour constituencies. The deletions were made after field-level verification and cross-checking with Booth Level Agents of political parties, he said. 

Genuine electors will be added in the electoral roll during the next phase of claims and objections period of SIR, which commenced on December 16 and would go on till January 15. Field representatives of all nine major political parties, including district presidents, participated in the exercise very actively. The political parties have appointed as many as 2,729 BLAs. The number of BLAs before the SIR was only 888. The increase in number of BLAs in Puducherry was an indicator of the active participation of political parties in the revision process, the CEO said.

Increase in Polling Stations

As part of SIR, an exercise was conducted to optimise the number of electors in one Polling Station (PS) to a maximum of 1,200 electors from the earlier 1,500 electors in the Union Territory. Accordingly, the number of PS in the Union Territory has gone up from 962 to 1,099. The department has briefed all political parties about the changes made to provide better convenience to voters and facilitate queue management, he said.