24 dual voters struck off from electoral rolls

From a Correspondent

Shillong, Nov 21: The Election Department of Meghalaya on Tuesday stated that it has identified and deleted mes of dual voters – those who have their mes included in the electoral rolls of both Assam and Meghalaya.

Meghalaya Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Frederick Roy Kharkongor said the exercise started from Dadenggre constituency.  

“After it was thoroughly established that they were dual voters, we identified 24 such persons and their mes were deleted in Dadenggre constituency,” Kharkongor said.

The CEO also said that Deputy Commissioners of districts bordering Assam are constantly in touch with their counterparts in the neighbouring State to ensure that electoral rolls are free of dual voters.

Dual voters have always been a problem in Meghalaya with residents along the Assam-Meghalaya border registering in the electoral rolls of both States to derive benefit from both governments.

Kharkongor also stated that the State Election department is considering registering “millennial voters” – those born on January 1, 2000 ahead of the 2018 Assembly polls in the State.

The Election department is targeting to enroll around 2000 “millennial voters” in Meghalaya.

“We hope to identify these voters from East Khasi Hills district and Tura. We are also in touch with the Shillong Municipal Board who have mes of youth born on January 1, 2000,” Kharkongor said.

According to him, the “millennial voters” will be recognised and feted during the tiol Voters’ Day.

Earlier, the CEO met the State’s political parties to focus on pre-poll and polling day arrangements.

During the meeting with political parties, the election department briefed them about the new method of electoral magement.

Kharkongor said he briefed the political parties about the Election Commission of India’s three information technology systems – Samadhan, Suvidha and Sugam – to make the election process smooth, effective and transparent.

Samadhan is a public grievance monitoring system. Suggestion and complaint, if any to the system, will identify as to which level of official is a right authority to deal with it and immediately pass it on to him or her. The official will get alert indicating receipt of this submission.

Disbursal of the complaints and actions taken to resolve them will be in a time-bound manner.

Suvidha, the single-window clearance for permission related to campaigning will facilitate to bring in more transparency in applying, processing and granting of permissions for holding rallies.

Sugam is an integrated vehicle magement system that will facilitate to generate online log book, payment of POL and vehicle charges to owners of vehicles, transfer of vehicles from on district to another district. It also provides option for lodging complaints by vehicle owners regarding payment. This will assist the officials to requisite and monitor the magement of the vehicle to be used during the elections.

Kharkongor further added that there will be 3,082 polling stations across the State, 311 more than the 2013 elections.

He also expressed concern over the gap in enrolment of eligible voters with the highest being around 16,000 in Nongkrem constituency under East Khasi Hills district.

The CEO said: “In the East Khasi Hills district alone there are about 55,000 left-out voters, while the West Garo Hills of Garo Hills sector have the highest number of left-out voters with 28,999.

Among the other issues that were discussed was the BLO-net, a pilot project of the Election Commission of India that is aimed at ebling booth level officers to map minute information about polling stations, nearest hospitals, roads and other landmarks. The BLO-net will be rolled out in five constituencies of Meghalaya – East Shillong, South Shillong, North Shillong and North Tura and South Tura.