E-Paper
Jump in young and women voters in Pune dist revised electoral roll
Among the increased voters in Pune district’s revised electoral roll, there are more women voters, and 45,000 are in 18-19 year age group
PUNE: Pune district- election officer and collector, Rajesh Deshmukh, on Tuesday published the revised electoral roll which shows that compared to last year, the number of voters has increased from 79.51 lakh to 81.27 lakh with greater participation of youngsters and women.
The electoral roll has increased by 1.76 lakh voters due to various activities implemented by the district election administration. Interestingly, among the increased voters, there are more women voters (97,350) while 45,000 voters are in the 18 to 19 years’ age group and 65,984 new voters are in the 20 to 29 years’ age group.
As per the information shared by election officials, on January 1, 2023, the electorate of the district was at 7,951,420, which rose to 873,183 on October 27, 2023 before the special, brief revision programme.
“The number of voters in the final electoral list has increased to 8,127,019 as the administration implemented various innovative activities such as special camps for women voters’ registration, holiday camps for marginalised sections of the society, participation of colleges and social organisations, voter registration facility in housing societies, and participation of industrial organisations,” Deshmukh said.
Compared to 2023, the number of male voters has increased by 78,049; transgender voters by 200; foreign voters by 57; and armed forces’ voters by seven. Whereas the number of disabled voters has decreased to 9,267 and the number of voters above 80 years of age has decreased to 34,141.
“Compared to the draft list released on October 27, 2023 before the special, short revision programme, there was an increase of 141,299 voters in the age group of 18 to 49 years while the number of voters above 50 years of age decreased by 87,463. Interestingly, the number of transgender voters has increased by 695 during this period. Increasing the sex ratio; registration of voters in specific age groups as per the projected population and planning for exclusion; emphasis on registration of nomads and freed castes, women, transgender persons, and college and school students; proper verification of the dead and double migrant voters in pursuit of bettering the voters’ list has made it possible to achieve the desired performance,” Deshmukh said.
About the initiatives taken to create awareness among students, Deshmukh said, “Election Literacy Boards were established in 105 colleges as there was huge scope for voter registration in the age group of 18 to 19 years. Online voter registration was carried out by the students in these college premises with the help of Worship Earth Foundation. The importance and process of voter registration was conveyed to students through a workshop. Under the Election Literacy Board, voter registration camps were organised in 106 colleges on the same day, and about 18,000 new voters were registered from the camp. Whereas 14,816 applications were filled in a single day on September 14 from a total of 87 colleges in association with the district election office and Wee Foundation.”
Asked about repeat names in the voters’ list, Deshmukh said, “Around 50,000 names with the same photographs and duplicate names have been excluded as per the revised list. Employees were trained to carry out this process. The voter registration officer has removed 40,390 and 10,204 duplicate names with the same photographs by eliminating errors and problems in daily review and verifying through central level officials.”
Deshmukh clarified that the voter registration process will continue even after January 23 and eligible voters should fill out application form number 6 online at the nearest polling station if their name is not in the list. Voter helpline mobile application or Election Commission of India website https://voters.eci.gov.in/ should be used to check the names in the voters’ list.
