Rajath Kumar, the first Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana, will focus on publication of accurate electoral roll. The final electoral roll will be published on March 23.
The CEO, who assumed charge here on Tuesday, inspected the premises at the Secretariat on Wednesday. The immediate challenge would be to build the CEO institution to ensure the credibility of the electoral process, he told The Hindu.
The last date for submitting claims and objections to the draft electoral rolls was over on March 5 and all the objections would be addressed within the purview of the law before publishing the final electoral roll, he said.
The citizens could continue to enrol their names into the voters’ list but only those whose names figure in the final electoral roll would be able to exercise their franchise in the 2019 elections.
On the concerns raised in some quarters that the Electronic Voting Machines were not tamper-proof, Mr. Rajat Kumar, who had been an observer and district election officer in at least 10 elections, said he did not see any problem with the EVMs.
However in 2019 elections, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) would be available and the voter could cross check his or her vote was recorded properly.
This should put to rest the misgivings.
The VVPAT would further improve the credibility of the EVMs which brought a sea change in the electoral process in terms of speed, efficiency and transparency.
For the time being, both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Chief Electoral Officers function from separate offices in the South H Block at Secretariat and the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer hopes to have full fledged office with all facilities along with video conferencing facility in the coming weeks.
