The Election Commission on Thursday extended the timelines for the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in six of the 12 states and Union Territories where the exercise is underway.
The poll panel said that the decision was taken based on requests received from the state chief electoral officers. It came hours before the updated deadline set by the commission on November 30.
The revised enumeration period in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat will end on December 14.
In Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the deadline will be December 18. The enumeration phase in Uttar Pradesh was given a nearly two-week extension till December 26.
The date of the publication of the draft electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat was revised to December 19. In Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the date will be December 23, and in Uttar Pradesh, it will be December 31.
On November 30, the Election Commission extended the deadline for submitting the enumeration forms till December 11 instead of December 4. The draft electoral rolls were to be published on December 16 instead of December 9.
The final electoral rolls are to be published on February 14 instead of February 7, the poll panel had said at the time. It was not immediately clear if this date had also been pushed ahead as a result of the Election Commission’s decision on Thursday.
The other six states and Union Territories for which the poll panel did not extend the timelines on Thursday are Goa, Puducherry, Kerala, Rajasthan, Lakshadweep and West Bengal.
The schedule for Kerala had been revised earlier. The enumeration phase in the state will end on December 18.
The task of preparing voter lists before elections is typically assigned to primary school teachers and anganwadi or health care workers, who are employed by state governments. They are required to go door-to-door and check the identities of new voters and verify the details of those who have died or permanently moved out of an area.
In the commission’s parlance, they are called booth-level officers. Each booth-level officer is responsible for maintaining the voter list for one polling booth.
At least eight suicides by booth-level officers and at least seven deaths have been reported in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan amid the revision of electoral rolls.
In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll published on September 30.
Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners also moved the Supreme Court against it.
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