Political parties urged to cooperate in transparent electoral roll preparation

All political parties must collaborate in creating an open electoral roll, and if they detect any inconsistencies in the draft list, they should submit written objections backed by evidence, as stated by Visakhapatnam district Roll Observer S. Bhargavi on Monday. Bhargavi, who also serves as the Director of Tribal Welfare, examined the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)-2026 system during a gathering with representatives from recognized political parties, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), and District Collector Abhishikth Kishore at the Collectorate.

During the review, she examined reports on form collection, the release of the draft roll, notifications to voters who did not return forms, and the identification of deceased or migrated voters. She also reviewed the status of Forms 6, 7, and 8. Bhargavi informed that 1,04,866 individuals aged 18 and 19 were anticipated to be eligible for registration based on the projected 2026 population, but only 4,787 had registered.

She ordered officials to conduct a special campaign to register eligible young voters. Additionally, Bhargavi commended the efforts of the Collector and officials in voter enumeration within the district and requested them to expedite voter registration while performing field-level verification of voters who had died, migrated, or failed to submit forms.

She emphasized that any one of the 11 official identity documents prescribed by the Election Commission could be used to identify voters whose records had not been matched and called for greater voter awareness. She urged political parties to work together at polling stations and submit written complaints with supporting evidence on corrections and duplicate registrations.

EROs were instructed to speed up the processing of pending Forms 6, 7, and 8 and create constituency-wise action plans. Kishore advised officials to examine the reasons and supporting documents if absent, migrated, or deleted voters resubmit their applications through Form 6. He also requested political parties to appoint booth-level representatives for the 163 newly created polling stations.