Jammu, Aug 14: With Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and Panchayat elections scheduled in the month of September in Jammu and Kashmir, there are mass discrepancies in the electoral rolls.
In the voter lists provided to the ULBs, there are mass discrepancies as new voters have not been added in the voter lists provided to the ULBs and even the names of the people, who died 10 years back, are still there in the electoral rolls.
“We have received a lot of complaints in this regard and, have therefore, written a letter to the election authorities requesting them to update the electoral rolls and send the updated voter lists to the ULBs,” Deputy Mayor, Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC), Baldev Billoria informed Rising Kashmir.
Considering the large-scale mistakes in the electoral rolls, the election authorities have extended the date both for filing objections as well as publication of the final electoral list.
“Now, instead of 13th August, people can file objections i.e regarding non-inclusion of their names in voter lists as well as deletion of the names of people who are no longer alive,” official sources said, while adding, “Moreover, the date for publication of final electoral lists has also been extended from 25th of August to 28th of this month”.
Some of the corporators blamed the BLOs for such mass discrepancies in the voter lists. “When we approached the concerned authorities, they blamed the BLOs for such large scale discrepancies in voter lists,” Corporator, ward 19, Amit Gupta, and Anu Bali, Corporator, ward 24 told Rising Kashmir.
They said that even complete mohallahs of their respective wards have been shifted to the adjoining wards in the voter lists provided to the ULBs and “new voters have not figured in the voter lists provided by the election authorities besides names of people who died 10 years back are still there in the voter lists”.
Deputy Mayor, Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC), Baldev Billoria said, “The voter lists provided to the ULBs are not updated and there are large scale discrepancies”.
Some of the Corporators, when approached in this regard, said, “When we approached the concerned authorities, they said that the discrepancies in the electoral rolls are mainly due to multiple borders in the adjoining wards”.
Anu Bali, Corporator of ward 24 said that the ward she represents has border with 07 wards i.e ward number 29, 33, 25, 26, 28, 27 and 08. SImilarly, almost every ward in the limits of JMC has a border with multiple wards.
Meanwhile, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has directed the State Informatics Officer to update the software of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
