Lucknow, 18 February: The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh Navdeep Rinwa informed in a press conference on Wednesday that the work of Voter List Revision (SIR) is underway at a fast pace in the state. Till now, hearing of 1 crore 15 lakh voters has been completed. Notices have been sent to a total of 3.26 crore voters.
He informed that hearing of 30 lakh voters was completed on February 5, 37 lakh on February 9, 60 lakh on February 13, 69 lakh on February 14, 79 lakh on February 15 and the hearing will be completed by March 27.
He explained that to facilitate and simplify the hearing process for voters, BLOs have been instructed to include the time and place of the hearing in the notice. Similarly, there are also instructions that BLOs will go to the voter’s home to deliver the notice, and if the voter is unavailable, they can distribute the notice to 12 members of their family so that it can reach the relevant person easily.
The CEO Navdeep Rinwa stated that 13,161 officers are conducting hearings at 4,635 locations in the state, compared to a lower number previously. In many districts, 90% of the hearing process has been completed. He added that Form 6 is being accepted for new enrolment. From January 6 to February 17, 5.4 million forms have been received, including 2.7614 for men and 2.720,320 for women. The total number of Form 6 forms submitted so far is 7.039,428, with a majority of these being men. The department’s special focus is on women and young voters. 9,11,779 Form 6 have been received from the age group of 18 to 19 years.
Similarly, giving information about Form 7, which is submitted for deletion of names from the list, the Chief Electoral Officer said that 1,40,425 forms have been submitted from January 6 to February 17. Of these, 84,667 forms are of men and 55,752 forms are of women. If we consider the numbers from October 27 to February 17, then 1,89,168 forms have been submitted. Of these, 1,12,994 are of men while 76,866 are of women. He said that 70,865 people have submitted Form 7 to get their names deleted themselves. From January 6 to February 16, only 4,336 names have been deleted.
The Chief Electoral Officer provided detailed information on allegations of names being deleted in various assembly constituencies by submitting Form 7 by others. He mentioned Babaganj, Pratapgarh, Sakaldiha, Bhojipura Bareilly, Ballia, Bidhuna, Ayodhya, and Mainpuri. Investigations were conducted in all these areas, and no errors were found. He reported that delegations from various political parties met today and their concerns were resolved.
The Election Commission will provide training to officials
Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa stated that some BLOs and higher officials employed in the SIR have not been trained. All such officials will be trained soon. These include some District Election Officers and Electoral Registration Officers from various districts.