Amidst apprehensions of political parties over defective voters’ list, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N Gopalaswami is holding a crucial meeting on Wednesday with Karnataka’s poll officials and observers to assess the State’s preparedness to go to the polls before May.
The CEC, who arrived here on Tuesday evening, will mainly review the electoral rolls preparation work that has generated a lot of heat in the State.
“He (Gopalaswami) has come to gather first-hand information on whether to go ahead on publishing the final voters’ list on January 10 or put it off till the month end,” official sources said.
If the CEC agrees to the proposal to extend the date of publishing the final list, it will delay the holding of the elections probably till June-July 2008. Or, if published on January 10, the elections are likely to be held in April-May.
Based on the feedback that Gopalaswami gets on the preparedness to hold elections, he will decide as to when to  issue the calender of events, officials explained. The proposal to extend the date has been put forth by the Karnataka Chief Electoral Office, in view of apprehensions expressed in many quarters that the voters’ list is defective.
The Congress has gone hammer and tongs on the issue and has also demanded that the CEC order an inquiry to look into the “grossly defective” list.
Moreover, the CEC is also likely to seek explanations from officials for the delay in preparing the list. He will also find out about the requirement of electronic voting machines and the law and order situation.
Wednesday’s meeting is scheduled to begin at 9 am at Vidhana Soudha. He will first hold a separate meeting with the four Central observers (chief electoral officers from other states) and Karnataka’s chief electoral officer R Ramseshan.
It will be followed by separate meetings with the Divisional Commissioners and the Deputy Commissioners of Gulbarga and Belgaum divisions and Mysore and Bangalore divisions. A separate meeting has been scheduled for BBMP officials, the sources said.
40 lakh ineligibles
Meanwhile, in a three-page letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, senior Congress leader H K Patil has alleged that an estimated 40 lakh ineligible names have crept into the voters’ list over the years diluting the quality and credibility of the rolls.
An average of 35,000 ineligible voters like dead persons, those who have shifted their residence, duplication of names and names of persons who don’t exist at all, have been listed as voters in each assembly constituency, he alleged.
In fact, cross verification of the draft electoral list published on November 2, 2007 has revealed the presence of 84,500 dead/shifted/duplicate voters in the seven assembly constituencies of Dharwad district.
The district administration has recommended to the State EC to delete those names with immediate effect. The maximum number of duplicate voters were in Dharwad City, Hubli City and Hubli Rural constituencies with 55,570 voters out of the total 84,500 voters.