By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: With the Election Commission of India starting the groundwork in the three poll bound states in the region, a time of three months have been given to the Chief Electoral Officers of these states to complete the summary revision of electoral rolls. Meghalaya along with Nagaland and Tripura will go to polls in 2013 alongside Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
Speaking to The Shillong Times, Principal Secretary P Naik said that the process of summary revision of electoral rolls will start from October 1 and all seekers of Elector’s Photo Identity Card (EPIC) should submit their forms to the respective Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). With alleged reports of many candidates’ applications being rejected by the ERO for reasons best known to the officer, Naik clarified that if a candidate’s application is rejected by the ERO than the candidate has the option to appeal further to the DC of the respective district. There were also alleged cases of candidates from other states staying here for work purpose whose applications were rejected.
On this the principal secretary said, “It is the duty of the issuing authority to seek for deletion of name of the electors from a particular state and issue him a new EPIC,” he said. This clarification from the Principal Secretary holds true since there are numerous cases when candidates’ applications were rejected because they hailed from a different state.
