Date:01/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/01/stories/2008010156291300.htm

National

Photo rolls work may be over by November: Gopalaswami

T. Ramakrishnan

States told to prepare basic voters’ rolls by Jan.-end

— Photo : N. Sridharan

Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami at a meeting with journalists at The Hindu office in Chennai on Monday. - PHOTO : N. SRIDHARAN

CHENNAI: Preparation of photo electoral rolls (rolls with voters’ photographs) may be completed by October-November 2008, according to Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami.

Indicating this in a discussion with journalists at The Hindu here on Monday, Mr. Gopalaswami said that as the work was taking a long time, the Commission had asked the States to prepare the basic voters’ rolls, effective January 1, 2008, by the end of January.

In the event of the President notifying the date from which the delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies would come into effect, the Commission would require four to six months to prepare the modified rolls.

Mr. Gopalaswami, a member of the Delimitation Commission, said the Commission’s work was complete except in four northeastern States — Nagaland, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. The panel had issued notifications in respect of other States. In respect of the northeastern States too, the notifications would be ready in a month.

Model code

Asked whether there was any case for reforming the model code of conduct because some don’ts seemed to be unrealistic, he said: “This is the document prepared by political parties themselves. The day they feel that it is not workable and they want to revise it, fine. But, we do not see that there is any reason for us to revise it.”

On making voting mandatory, he said there was such a system in Australia where by 2 p.m. on the polling day, voters would be informed that if they did not vote, they would have to pay a fine of 25 dollars. He did not see any purpose in enacting a law on voting unless it could be effectively implemented.

Asked whether opinion polls had any impact on the election outcome, Mr. Gopalaswami said there might be some effect though it was not visible. At present, the Election Commission did not have any jurisdiction over the media on the opinion polls as there was no law. It had written to the Law Ministry to frame one.

He expressed satisfaction over the way the Assembly elections were held in Bihar (in November 2005), Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat (2007).