Citizen moves court for revision of electoral rolls

Nagpur: A city businessman has filed a PIL in Nagpur bench of Bombay high court praying for directives to respondents, including Election Commission of India (ECI), for revision of electoral rolls before assembly polls, which he claimed was having many discrepancies.
He demanded that the respondents commence house-to-house visit for verification, updation and revision of electoral rolls and accordingly publish corrected one by removing all errors.
A division bench comprising justices Ravi Deshpande and Vinay Joshi on Wednesday issued notices to ECI principal secretary, Maharashtra’s chief electoral officer at General Administration Department (GAD) and district collector-cum-returning officer (RO), asking them to reply within four weeks. Neerja Chaubey accepted notice on behalf of ECI.
Nandkishor Ahir, a resident of Mini Mata Nagar, quoted BJP MLAs in their claims of discrepancies in electoral lists and flouting of norms by the ECI officials during Lok Sabha polls in April. On July 7, MLAs Krishna Khopde and Sudhakar Kohale had filed a representation with collector Ashwin Mudgal requesting him to take corrective measures to ensure error free elections in future.
They also prayed for correcting electoral list immediately, as it still contains names of many dead voters. Both have warned to move Nagpur bench of Bombay HC if their concerns are not addressed.
According to the petitioner, the respondents are governed by the Representation of People Act, 1951, and others. Preparation, preservation, updation and revision of electoral roll is an essential condition of an election process to ensure correct turnout of voters and not to keep any eligible voter out. However, it wasn’t being done in true letter and spirit of the rules.
He claimed that there is not only failure to discharge constitutional and legal obligation, but also amounts to acting arbitrarily against the Act’s mandate. It has given rise to issues like voting by impersonation, decrease in votes polled, malpractices, inadequate facilities for specially abled electors, multiple entries or errors in names in electoral roll, and big number of voters at a single polling booth.
Ahir contended that the respondents do not seem to carry out legal duties regarding revision and updation of the electoral rolls by exercising valuable powers bestowed upon them. He approached the court being concerned about the haphazard and arbitrary manner in which the election is to be conducted.
(With inputs from Manshika Vaikkath)