CEO holds all-party meet

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, OCT. 21. A special revision of electoral rolls in the State has been taken up under the directions of the Election Commission of India to enroll all eligible citizens, who attain the age of 18 years as on January 1, 2001, in all Parliament and Assembly constituencies.

The Chief Electoral Officer, Mr.M.V. Natarajan, convened a meeting with representatives of political parties on Saturday and sought suggestions and cooperation for the special revision. Mr. Ravula Chandrasekhara Reddy and Mr.C. Manik Reddy of TDP, Mr. Gade Venkat Reddy of the Congress, Mr.D. Krishna Verma of the BJP, Mr. Aziz Pasha of the CPI, Mr.A. Padmanabhaiah of the Nationalist Congress Party and Mr.M.D. Paul Vedant of the Bahujan Samaj Party participated in the meeting.

Mr. Natarajan informed the participants that under the special revision programme, draft publication of rolls was on November 2, while the period for filing claims and objections was between November 2 and 30. Disposal of claims and objections and preparing and printing of supplements was on December 30 and the final publication of electoral rolls was slated for January 2.

The salient features of the special revision are: to make electoral rolls clean and correct with maximum involvement of electors and political parties, to organise a special campaign in two phases each for two consecutive dates, November 11 and 12 and November 25 and 26 during which election staff would be available at designated locations to assist electors in filing claims and objections and the campaign days to be declared public holidays.

As part of the special revision programme, it was decided to take up an intensive awareness campaign and to educate electors and political parties through various forms of media, to establish help desks and control rooms both at the State and district headquarters and ERO level, to make available complete list of towns, villages, localities and areas as listed in the electoral rolls for each Assembly constituency in the form of a booklet, to make special efforts for enrolment of women electors by utilising the services of women's organisations, local NGOs as well as political parties, to obtain additional information from applicants through information sheets and statutory forms and to eliminate the names of the dead and migrated electors, to correct entries in the electoral rolls.

The CEO advised district election officers to hold meetings with representatives of political parties.

The strength of the electors in the 294 Assembly constituencies grouped into 42 parliamentary constituencies as on January 1, 2000, was 5,05,81,677. The statutory authorities responsible for conduct of revision at the field level consist of 87 electoral revision officers (EROs) and 1,200 assistant EROs.

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Section  : Southern States
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