3.16 lakh voters deleted ahead of BMC polls

MUMBAI: After a recent drive held for the upcoming Mumbai civic polls, the Election Commission of India has proposed to delete from its rolls 3.16 lakh voters from Mumbai and its suburbs.

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Overall, 7.85 lakh voters have been deleted during the statewide drive, meant to clean the voters’ list of residents who are Absent, Shifted and Dead (ASD).

The local self-government polls are dubbed as mini Assembly elections. They start in October and end in March next year and will include polls of 26 Zilla Parishads, 10 civic corporations and 297 Panchayat Samitis.

Even after the massive drive, the ECI feels there are 15 to 20 lakh more ADS voters who need to be deleted. Many of them who are repeatedly registered are from urban and semi-urban areas that see a lot of migration.

The suburbs has the most number of such voters, followed by Thane, Pune, Navi Mumbai, Nashik and Aurangabad, as migration and slum pockets are highest here.

Mumbai suburbs have 7-10 lakh voters who need to be deleted. Of the 3.16 lakh deleted voters, 3.11 lakh are from suburbs. “The 18-plus population in state is 68.41% of the projected population of 12.06 crore in January 2017. Against it, 67.11% or 8.17 crore voters have registered against the projected eligible number of 8.30 crore,” said a state ECI official.

The summary revision of the electoral roll was held by ECI from January. The draft has been published for voters to raise objections. The final list will be published on January 5, 2017. “The ECI should use the best available technology and social media to ensure more voters register and repeated voters are deleted. The effective leverage of social media can pay a role in cleaning electoral rolls,” said Milind Mhaske, project director of Praja.