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Uncertainty looms over local body polls after Kerala slated for SIR
Kerala's local body elections face uncertainty as the ECI included the state in a special voter roll revision, causing concerns over timing and legality.
Elections to the three-tier rural and urban local bodies in Kerala, scheduled earlier for November or December this year, now face an uncertain fate after the Election Commission of India (ECI) included the state as part of the second phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
A total of 9 states and 3 UTs were included, even as the printing of forms and the training for BLOs is set to begin today (Tuesday). According to officials in the know, Kerala’s chief electoral officer (CEO) Rathan U Kelkar purportedly recommended to the ECI earlier that the SIR be deferred till after the local body elections to avoid staff shortages.
According to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, “Local body elections in Kerala have not been notified yet. That’s why SIR has been announced there.”
The SEC is expected to meet party representatives on October 29, before the schedule is announced. The final voter list, published on Sunday, included 28.4 million voters .
Meanwhile, the state CPI(M) termed the decision of the ECI to include Kerala “completely undemocratic.” “It is very worrying to hear the ECI say that the local body polls have not been notified in the State yet. The ECI’s move ignores the voter list scientifically prepared by Kerala. The current voter list stands frozen from Monday night. The special intensive revision is based on the voter list prepared between 2002 and 2004. It is illegal to base the revision on an old list instead of the newly-prepared list,” the party said.
An SEC official said, “For the local body polls, a separate voter list has been prepared by the SEC. That list is not frozen. The ECI’s decision is only binding on the voter list for Assembly and Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
State election commissioner A Shahjahan did not respond to HT’s repeated requests for comment.
