SP seeks 2003 voter list from Election Commission, submits memorandum

Lucknow, Sep 16 (PTI) The Samajwadi Party's Uttar Pradesh unit on Tuesday sought from the state election commission the 2003 voter list as well as "all lists" prepared between the final publication of the list on January 7 this year and the start of the revision process.

After the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, the EC plans to hold similar exercises in the rest of the country. Uttar Pradesh last had an SIR in 2003.

The SP's chief spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary, said that the party's state unit president, Shyam Lal Pal, submitted a memorandum to the Chief Electoral Officer, demanding that the 2003 voter list and the list of voters added after the January 7 publication be made available to it "free of cost".

He said this would help the party's booth-level agents (BLAs) work with booth-level officers (BLOs) to correct errors in the voter rolls during the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

According to the memorandum, names of around 15.42 crore voters were registered across about 1.90 lakh polling stations in 403 assembly constituencies in the state.

During the special revision, the voter list will be reset to zero and BLOs will visit each household to verify individual voters and fill out the enumeration forms.

BLAs of political parties will cooperate with BLOs to ensure an error-free voter list. Names of deceased persons, permanently shifted voters, duplicate entries, and missing voters will be deleted during verification.

Chaudhary said that since 2003, reorganisation of polling stations has taken place, resulting in a large number of voters' polling booths and voting centres being changed.

It is therefore crucial to identify these changes, and BLAs must be provided with the voter list of their respective booths to assist BLOs in the verification exercise, he said. PTI KIS RT