The Panchkula administration is set to announce the ward-wise voter list for the upcoming civic body elections on Friday.With the Panchkula administration set to announce the ward-wise voter list for the upcoming civic body elections on Friday, several seeking election have objected to the process stating that many voters who were not given the time to register themselves will be left out of the list.
As per an amendment announced vide a letter issued on March 14 in 2017, the Haryana government had dissolved the rule number 6 of the Haryana Municipal Corporation Elections Rules of 1994, which stated that any person above the age of 18 and a resident of a ward can get his name added to the voter list.
The elections now, take on the latest legislative assembly list into consideration to prepare the voters’ list. This list then invites claims and objections but absolves the citizens of their right to vote by not accepting claims of residents who as per rule 6 would have been eligible to vote. Thus, if a member of the ward does not have their name enrolled in the legislative voter list, they will not get a chance to elect his representative.
Ravindar Raval, former Mayor of Panchkula from the Congress party, says, “The Panchkula administration has taken the voters list of January 2020. Thus, those who registered themselves after January will not be eligible to cast their votes. Only those names, which already exist in the legislative assembly list will enter ward-wise list of names of people permitted to vote. This way more than 10,000 persons will lose their chance to vote.”
He further states that the administration must “rectify their mistake if any names are left out from the voters list, since it is a citizen’s right to vote and an error on part of the administration in addition of names to voters list must be corrected.”
Rule 14 of the said Act which dealt with the inclusion of names in the roll finally published was also discarded during the amendment. The clause had the option where in any person whose name was left out or not included in the roll of a ward as finally published, could apply for the inclusion of his name in that roll.
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