Jharkhand: Drive to enrol urban voters from today

RANCHI: The Election Commission will launch special electoral revision drives in urban areas of the state from Wednesday onwards to enrol urban voters as the poll governing body is concerned about the poor turnout of urban voters during the elections.
On Tuesday, state chief electoral officer K Ravi Kumar said the exercise is a part of a national-level special revision of electoral rolls which will be launched from Pune in Maharashtra on Wednesday.
“Eligible voters who turned 18 years of age on or before October 1 this year will be able to enrol themselves in the electoral roll. Earlier, those who turned 18 years before January 1 (of a particular calendar year) had to wait for a full year to get themselves enrolled,” he added.
The special electoral roll revision will focus on holding door-to-door surveys and camps in apartments, rehabilitation and resettlement colonies, gated communities and schools (government and private) and colleges to enrol the eligible voters.
As per the EC estimates, nearly 24 lakh eligible voters aged between 18 and 29 years are not registered with the electoral rolls in the state.
The CEO also said the draft of the electoral roll will be published on Wednesday and eligible voters can file for claims and objections up to December 8.
Special campaigns will be held at all polling booths across the state where polling officials will dispose of new registrations, corrections and objections (through offline mode).
Notably, over 98% of all new voter card applications in the state are made online.
Ravi Kumar further said over 68% of all registered electors in Jharkhand had synced their voter (Epic) cards with their respective Aadhar cards.
“There are still 76 lakh electors who have not authenticated their voter cards by linking them with their Aadhar cards (or through 10 other government documents). We hope that the process will be completed during this special drive,” he added.
As per the last electoral roll revision, Jharkhand had 2.39 crore electors.