States miss final voters’ list deadline; Lakshdweep, Puducherry first to publish

NEW DELHI, Feb 14: Nine states and three Union territories have missed the original deadline to publish their final electoral rolls as part of the ongoing special intensive revision of voters’ list.
However, the Union territories of Lakshdweep and Puducherry came out with their final rolls on Saturday as part of the Election Commission’s ambitious phase two of voters’ list cleanup exercise.According to Puducherry’s chief electoral officer, the Union territory has 9,44,211 electors in the final voters’ list.Lakshadweep has 57,607 electors according to the final voters’ list.Announced on October 27 last year, the phase two of the special intensive revision covers a combined electorate of nearly 51 crore in these states and Union Territories.
The exercise was to conclude on February 7 with the publication of final electoral rolls.
While the deadline was missed, Lakshdweep and Puducherry on Saturday came out with their respective electoral rolls.
Rajasthan too was to come up with its final rolls on Saturday, the poll authority has extended the date of publication to February 21.
EC officials said a variety of reasons such as poor implementation by state chief electoral officers of the schedule, mismanagement by grassroots level officials, political intervention and issue reaching the Supreme Court ate behind the schedule going haywire.
According to the latest schedule, the final rolls of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat will be published on February 17, while Andaman, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Goa will have their final rolls on February 21.The final poll roll of Madhya Pradesh will be published on February 23. On February 28, the final voters’ list of West Bengal while that of Uttar Pradesh will be issued on April 10.Separately, a special revision of electoral rolls in Assam concluded on February 10. (PTI)