Delhi EC counts 1.5 cr voters, new names to be added till Nov

Process of enrolling new voters to continue till last day of filing nominations; awareness drive on cards to connect with youth and women. Neelam Pandey reports.

After striking out the names of lakhs of bogus voters and adding new ones, the Delhi Election Commission will publish the final electoral roll on Monday for the forthcoming assembly elections.

According to officials, Delhi has a total of 1.15 crore voters so far and the female-male ratio stands at 804 to 1,000. Before the exercise of adding new voters had started, the voter ratio stood at 802 to 1,000.

This list includes more than 3.5 lakh new voters in the age-group of 18-19 years.

The officials said this list also included nearly 550 people registered under the category of ‘Other’ (Eunuchs, transgender).

“We have completed phase I and the first list will be published on Monday. However, the process of adding new names is an ongoing exercise,” said Vijay Dev, chief electoral officer, Delhi.

All those whose names do not figure will now have an opportunity to add themselves in the list.

The exercise will continue from Monday till the last day of filing nominations, which is till November.

After the publication of the electoral rolls, the commission is also set to announce the date for the model code of conduct for the elections. The date is likely to be in the third week of September, sources said .

“We noticed that a number of voters had invalid numbers on their cards and there was duplication even in the numbers written on the cards which should be a unique one. All those mistakes have now been rectified and a final roll is being published,” said a senior official.

The Delhi Election Commission will now start the second phase of its awareness drive. The drive will include holding rallies, competitions, quizzes and connecting with the youth of Delhi.

“The second phase will now concentrate on ensuring a high voter turnout for the upcoming assembly elections. We will use the multi-media and other forms of publicity to reach out to the masses, especially the youth and women,” said Dev.

The booth level officers who have to go door to door to hand out voter identification slips to the people days before the elections were so far getting a meagre amount of `3,000 per year. They will now get `12,000 for the exercise.