EC to pursue with further revision of rolls in Bengal

Kolkata, Mar 13 (UNI) Deputy Chief Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan today said the Election Commission would pursue with further revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal with a thrust on the urban areas which had a low record of deletion of the names of dead voters.

''The Commission has asked the Chief Electoral Officer(CEO) to personally monitor the the revision with a focus on municipal and urban areas. The micro approach we took yielded result in the rural areas, but there was a lack of its implementation in the urban areas,'' he said.

Talking to reporters after a marathon meeting with 21 Returning Officers and the CEO at the state secretariat, Mr Balakrishnan said deletion of names of the dead and shifted voters was much higher in rural Bengal than in Kolkata and other urban areas.

''We have to pinpoint the particular areas where such names still exist and the problems in carrying out the task,'' he said.

Altogether 1.3 million names of dead and shifted voters have so far been deleted from the final voters' list of West Bengal during a two-and-a-half month intensive revision that witnessed repeated visits of EC observers for on the spot supervision.

The Deputy CEC, who reviewed all aspects of poll preparedness in the state, at present the EC's topmost priority was to maximise the coverage of Electoral Photo Identity Cards(EPIC). He directed the respective district collectors to work out their own methodology to increase the coverage before the elections.

He said the state had a good EPIC coverage at 93.13 per cent which declined to 90 per cent with about 2.1 million new voters being included in the rolls.

Mr Balakrishnan also discussed with the officials several other issues, including availability of polling personnel, enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct, logistics and the problems in carrying out the job.

UNI KDG BA/ARB RK2205