CEC rules out early UP polls; 10,275 new polling booths

Lucknow, July 28 (UNI) Ruling out early assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N Gopalsway said today that elections would be held on time before May 15, when the tenure of the current assembly expires.

The CEC, who was in the state capital to review the progress of electoral rolls and Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC), said 10,275 new polling booths would be set up in order to minimise the load on booths, where the strength is over 1,500 voters.

Addressing a news conference, Mr Gopalswamy said booth level officers would be deployed in all the 1,01,334 booths, who will monitor the genunity of electoral rolls to be published on January 1, 2007 to be used for the assembly polls.

''During the meeting with divisional commissioners, I entrusted them with the responsibility of taking care of electoral rolls and EPIC by deploying booth officers,'' he informed.

He also denied that the Mulayam Singh Yadav government had sent any proposal to hold the elections in November-December, 2006 or the assembly polls would be held on new delimitation of constituencies.

He did not comment if the EC would hold UP polls along with other states, where the elections were slated in Februrary-March 2007.

The CEC said EC was committed to holding free and fair polls in UP and would do whatever was required for it at the appropriate time after announcement of election dates.

Mr Gopalswamy said there were several anomalies in electoral rolls and during a sample checking in two assembly constitutencies, illegible voters between 5 to 10 per cent were detected.

''The EC has taken serious note on the issue and directed the concerned to check the anomalies in other constituencies,'' he said.

EC had conducted sample survey of electoral rolls in Sohawal assembly constituency in Faizabad district and in Allahabad (South).

While the percentage of illegible voters at Sohawal, a rural area, was around 5, it was 10 at Allahabad (South).

''The divisional commissioners have been asked to monitor the electoral rolls' process to start from October 6 for the 2007 rolls to end the anomalies,'' he stated.

Talking about the EPIC, he said an average of 65 per cent of voters have been issued the card. In 60 assembly constitutencies, the percentage of EPIC was over 75 per cent and in 28 constituencies, it was over 80 per cent.

''We have directed the divisional commissioner to implement 100 per cent EPIC in some UP constituencies so that EC can launch Photo Electoral rolls like it was done in 140 constituencies of Kerala,'' he said.

UNI MB VS LL HS1937