Manipur preparing for general election

IMPHAL, September 26: The state election authority and Election Commission of India (ECI) have been taking up necessary steps for the purification of the state’s electoral list prior to the upcoming Manipur assembly polls which are scheduled to be held before March 18 next year. Gram Sabha Special Summary Revision, which had already concluded on September 24 last, has also been extended for another two weeks for the electoral purification process, says Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Vivek Kumar Dewangan while speaking to media persons at the Conference Hall of Old Secretariat in Imphal today. He said that in view of purifying the electors, the Election department has conducted first round of Gram Sabha Special Summary Revision on September 10 and second round was held on September 24, 2016. The main objective of conducting Gram Sabha was purification of electoral rolls. In this process, Booth Level Officers, Supervisors, public representatives etc were included.After these rounds, the CEO office has around 18, 07000 electorates with 7000 to 8000 applications submitted by electorates for addition or deletion from the electoral list of the state, he informed. The state election officials would be committed to strictly follow the instructions and advice of the ECI for regular interactions with press/media, political parties will be held on fortnightly basis, he announced. For claims and objections, the electors may use form number 6 for addition, form number 7 for deletion and form number 8 for correction. The electors can do the needful by obtaining the forms from the BLOs. Double and multiple entry of electors will be check in Gram Sabha. As per instruction of the Election Commission, rationalization of ROs, EROs, AEROs for the 60 assembly constituencies will be done so that each Assembly Constituency will be look after by one officer. A proposal in this regard has been sent to Election Commission. The proposal includes appointing 39 ROs /EROs and 73 AEROs/AROs, stated the CEO, he said. The CEO appealed to all stakeholders, political parties to come forward and co-operate with election machinery like EROs in purifying the electoral rolls. In the purification exercise, the election authorities want to clean those electors who have double/multiple entry in the electoral rolls. The Election department is trying it best to bring out error free final publication of Electoral Rolls on 2nd January, 2017 with January 1, 2017 as qualifying date. The CEO further said that ECI will hold Video Conferencing with DCs and SPs on September 28 pertaining to the preparedness for the ensuing general election for Manipur. Additional CEO RK Dinesh also attended the interaction.