According to an official communication released by Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo a total of 5.45 lakh forms from the public were received by the district election officials. Of this densely populated districts like Chennai, Tiruvallur, Coimbatore, Dindigul recorded good response for form 7, where the public intend to include their names into the draft voters rolls that are now under revision. Most of the applications were from people who have crossed 18 years of age.

Chennai received 18,637 forms seeking inclusion of names. Tiruvallur and Coimbatore received 17,059 and 18,081 forms seeking inclusion of names.

In case of form 8 seeking corrections a total of 47,773 forms were received. There were about 32,000 forms submitted by public seeking deletion of names and most of the forms were related to the dead.

Sparsely populated districts like The Nilgiris, Tirupattur, Ariyalur and Perambalur received less number of forms. Nilgiris and Tirupattur received 3,431 and 4,885 forms respectively. All southern districts like Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Kanniyakumari received more than 10,000 forms.

“With just six months away for the polls, the special camps scheduled for next weekends are also likely to receive a good response, a public election department official said adding that the online mode is also available for the public seeking changes and change of photograph in the photo electoral rolls.

It may be noted that the CEO had directed the Collectors to start acting as the district election officers and hold district wise meeting with political party representatives to discuss the preparation of the voters’ list draft, for which January 1, 2021, is the deadline.