MCD polls: Special summary revision of electoral rolls begins

According to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, on January 5, Delhi had 14,899,159 voters. As on November 9, the city has 14,690,756 voters.

More than 200,000 voters have been removed from Delhi’s electoral rolls between January 5 and November 9 with a special revision of the rolls being initiated from Wednesday ahead of the MCD elections on December 4, said officials in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi.

Revision of electoral rolls is a continuous exercise with addition and deletion of voters going on round the year. The chief electoral officer has announced the special summary revision of rolls for MCD polls. (HT Photo)

The rolls were revised in January since the civic polls were due in March. However, they were postponed after the Centre announced the merger of the three municipal bodies in Delhi. On January 5, Delhi had 14,899,159 voters. As on November 9, the city has 14,690,756 voters.

Revision of electoral rolls is a continuous annual exercise with addition and deletion of voters going on round the year. For conducting elections, the state election commission uses the last available updated rolls till the notification of election. SEC has not released the final ward-wise electoral rolls for MCD elections.

The election commission office has attributed the reduction in the number of voters to removal of duplicate entries, deaths, migration to other places and people who have left their original assemblies but failed to get their names added at the new constituency.

Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh said the qualifying date for the new electoral rolls will be January 1, 2023, which means that anybody attaining the voting age of 18 years by January 1 can get her name added to the list. “The primary objective of the exercise is to include newly eligible and left out voters who have completed or will be completing age of 18 years on January 1, 2023. This also provided opportunities for correction in electors’ particulars, and also to invite objections against any wrong entry in the rolls,” Singh said.

According to the timeline announced by the CEO’s office, the deadline for filing claims and objections is December 8, 2022. “The disposal of claims and objections will be completed by December 26, 2022. The final electoral rolls will be published on January 5, 2023,” he added.

“An eligible citizen, who is going to attain the age of 18 years on any of the subsequent qualifying dates in the year 2023 may also file his/her claim for inclusion of his/her name in the roll in Form-6 in advance, starting today and their voter card would be issued after the relevant qualifying date,” the CEO said.

Singh said that the assembly constituency-wise draft electoral roll is now available on the website of the department, www.ceodelhi.gov.in, and the lists are also available at polling stations. “A person, whose name has been deleted from the electoral roll wrongfully can file an appeal under Section 24 of the representation of the People Act, 1950 within the prescribed period of 15 days to the District Election Officer against the deletion of his name or submit Form-6 for inclusion of his name in the electoral roll any time during summary revision of electoral roll,” he added.

Delhi voters can also check their name in the electoral rolls by sending an SMS “ECI<space>voter ID number” to 1950 or online at https://electoralsearch.in. “Application for addition or deletion of names from the electoral can be made online at national voters’ service portal www.nvsp.in or https://voterportal.eci.gov.in,” said Singh .

MCD elections will be held in Delhi on December 4, and the counting of votes will be taken up on December 7.