Mumbai: Even after adding 1.48 million new voters across all age groups in the year 2022, the Election Commission (EC) found that as many as 3.77 million first-time voters aged between 18-19 years are out of the electoral rolls.
The EC also revealed a whopping 10.95 million youth voters between the 18-29 age group are yet to register themselves as voters. The constitutional body now aims at targeting these potential voters during its fresh summary revision drive beginning from November 9 across the state.
Chief Electoral Officer, Maharashtra the projected population of the state till January 2023, is expected to be 129.8 million, of which, 4.2 million are expected to be first time voters in the 18-19 age group and 23 million in the 20-29 age group. Against them, 0.44 million and 15.86 million have been registered as voters respectively. Against this, the voters registered in old age group of over 40 years, the voters registered with the EC are more than their actual population. For instance, against the population of 13.74% in the age group 40-49, the voters registered are 15.31%, against the population of 10.38% in 50-59 years, the voters percentage is 11.46. Similarly, in 60-69 years and 70-79 years age group the registered voters are 7.45% and 4.18% against their population of 6.46 and 3.89% respectively.
“The apathy among youth for the registration as voters and then for voting in urban areas is a cause of concern. We are trying to get them to register as voters through outreach programmes in colleges and universities. Another challenge before us is to remove duplicate entries on the electoral roll in the old age groups. The figures in the roll are inflated because of the duplicate entries of the people who have shifted to other constituencies or who have died. We have undertaken the task of cleansing the roll-on priority,” said Shrikant Deshpande, chief electoral officer, Maharashtra.
{{/usCountry}}“The apathy among youth for the registration as voters and then for voting in urban areas is a cause of concern. We are trying to get them to register as voters through outreach programmes in colleges and universities. Another challenge before us is to remove duplicate entries on the electoral roll in the old age groups. The figures in the roll are inflated because of the duplicate entries of the people who have shifted to other constituencies or who have died. We have undertaken the task of cleansing the roll-on priority,” said Shrikant Deshpande, chief electoral officer, Maharashtra.
{{/usCountry}}Deshpande added that the double entries of the voters are identified from the similarities in the photos with the help of the software provided by the EC. He said the duplicate voters are removed from the voters list only after the visit of an officer to the doorstep of the voters.
The EC deleted 2.97 million voters for double entries in the electoral rolls in 2022. The highest deletions for the double entries identified through photographs were in Pune (0.2 million) followed by Thane (0.15 million) and Mumbai Suburbs (0.11 million).
Like youngsters, the percentage of registration as voters among women is also estimated to be poor. 915 women against the male population of 1,000 are registered as voters against the sex ratio of 929 females against 1,000 males.
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