E-Paper
Provide documents to eligible voters on war footing: Kerala CM to district collectors
SIR hearings began at polling booths across the state on Tuesday, with over 1.3 lakh people issued notices so far.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has instructed all district collectors to take adequate steps to provide the required documents, on a war footing, to eligible voters who find themselves excluded from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) draft list.
The voters will be assisted with accessing their essential documents at no additional charge. A previous cabinet meeting had decided to set up help desks at the local level for voters who want to add their names to the voter list.
“District collectors have been tasked with setting up hearing centres with necessary infrastructure at all required locations in a manner that does not cause inconvenience to the general public. The services of volunteers and adequate hearing officers will be ensured at all centres. There will be facilities at all centres to help eligible voters submit forms online,” the CM’s office said.
SIR hearings began at polling booths across the state on Tuesday, with over 1.3 lakh people issued notices so far due to discrepancies with respect to their documents. A total of 1.87 million notices have been prepared by the electoral registration officers (ERO) so far, which will be issued in the next few days.
The SIR draft list was published in Kerala on December 23. Of the 27.8 million voters who were issued forms during the enumeration phase, 2.408 million have been excluded from the draft list. Another 1.932 million voters in the draft list are ‘in limbo’ meaning they could not be linked to the 2002 electoral roll. The total number of voters during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Kerala stood at 27.7 million.
The CM instructed all district collectors to appoint BLOs in polling stations where they are absent within two days. Officials retiring as ER.O, A.E.R.O. and additional A.E.R.O must be replaced by new appointees soon, he said.
The statement from the CM’s office also said that if there is a delay in voters procuring documents through the K-SMART portal, the same can be accessed directly through grama panchayats.
“The government’s policy is to ensure voting rights for all eligible people. This is why the State has consistently demanded that the SIR process be inclusive of all voters,” it said.
