EC launches drive to weed out dead voters from UP electoral lists

New Delhi, Sep 17 (UNI) The Election Commission is sending six teams consisting of a total of 12 members to Uttar Pradesh tomorrow, to weed out the " dead voters " from the electoral rolls, where the assembly elections are due to be held early next year.

According to EC sources, these teams will fan out in different parts of the state and will go in for random verification of the electoral rolls.

The team will carry out this operation till September 22 and will submit its report to the EC panel.

Sources said, already over 18.5 lakh dead voters have been identified in the electoral rolls and the process to review the lists is still on.

The EC, in order to ensure accurate gathering of information at the grassroot level, the panel recently introduced the system of deploying a Booth Level Officer (BLO) in each polling booth to closely audit the electoral rolls. The BLO have already been appointed in over a lakh polling stations.

The concept of BLO was introduced for the first time in the state, and these officials will be responsible for the correctness of electoral rolls at a polling station.

The state has an electorate base of 11.5 crore, and in view of this huge base and its importance in the national political scene, the Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswamy has already made four visits to the State to personally acess the electoral review process, the sources added.

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