Election officials in Assam on Tuesday released the state’s final voter list following the Special Revision (SR) process, resulting in a 0.97% drop in the total number of voters compared to the draft list released in December.
GUWAHATI: Voters check their names in the electoral roll during special revision ahead of the Assam Assembly Elections (PTI).”The total number of voters in the draft voter list was 2,52,01,624, which has now reduced by 2,43,485 voters to 2,49,58,139 in the final voter list… a decrease of 0.97% compared to the draft voter list,” a statement from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Assam said.
The final voter list includes 1,24,82,213 male voters, 1,24,75,583 female voters and 343 third gender.
The SR process carried out in Assam is different from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls carried out in several states, as the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), unique to Assam and aimed at weeding out illegal immigrants, has not been notified.
For one, Assam’s SR practice did not require physical verification of documents by booth-level officers (BLOs) and the focus was on filling public forms for inclusion of new voters, objections to entry or seeking corrections.
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In the first phase of the SR process, BLOs conducted door-to-door surveys across 126 assembly constituencies in the state between November 22 and December 20 last year. The draft voter list for the SR process was released on December 27 last year, following demands and objections.
On December 27, after door-to-door verification, election officials announced that 4,78,992 names had been marked for deletion due to death, 5,23,680 due to shifting from their registered location and 53,619 due to multiple entries – a total of 10,56,291 names.
The statement issued by the Assam CEO’s office on Tuesday did not specify how many names were deleted during the demand and objection phase between December 27 and January 22.
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The statement said that people can file appeals (regarding non-inclusion, change of name or address) to the District Magistrate within 15 days of publication of the final voter list.
A second application can be made to the CEO within 30 days, it added.
Assam’s SR process came under scrutiny during the demand and objection phase after the release of the draft voter list, with opposition parties in the state accusing the ruling BJP of deliberately ensuring deletion of names by submitting objections on a large scale.
Several parties, including the Congress, filed a complaint with the Election Commission last month demanding a detailed probe into the entire process and a thorough audit of all Form 7 (objection to inclusion) applications filed in the last three months in all constituencies.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma waded into controversy last month, announcing that “certain measures” had been taken to ensure that Miaras (a pejorative term for Bengali-speaking Muslims living in Bangladesh) could not vote in India.
“Congress can abuse me as much as they want, but my job is to make the Miads uncomfortable… No tribal Assamese has been affected by the SR process. What’s wrong if the Miads feel a little uncomfortable in the process,” Sarma said, adding that there would be a comprehensive SIR when the assembly elections, which are likely to end in March.
