EPIC issuance a complicated task due to large number of voters

Shillong, Mar 19 (UNI) Meghalaya's Minister-in-charge of Election Dr Mukul Munda Sangma today said the state has around 13 lakh voters and implementation of electoral photo-identity card(EPIC) is a huge task.

Dr Sangma was replying to a zero-hour notice raised by Meghalaya Democratic Party(MDP) Member P T Sawkmie over a news item that appeared in a local vernacular daily recently, alleging that in some constituencies photo identity card was issued to a large number of 'doubtful' citizens.

He said that a large number of illegal voters had already managed in registering themselves as voters, adding that it is a very serious issue. He urged the government to not include any illegal voters in the voters list.

He urged the state to enrol only genuine citizens and those who over 18 years of age.

Dr Sangma said that the East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner had admitted there a mistake has been committed by his office in issuing notice to the persons as they were already covered earlier and notices issued stand revoked. He asked the government to treat this as a human error in the light of the magnitude of the exercise.

He said there are opportunities available to the people to redress their grievances, if any, in the process of implementation of EPIC programmes.

The Minister seeked cooperation from all sections of the house to convey the message to the people of the state so that all eligible voters of the state are covered under the EPIC programme to facilitate conduct of free and fair election.

UNI