Only 50% of enumeration forms digitised so far: Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer

10 days are left for the end of the enumeration period under the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls

Chennai: With just 10 days left for the end of the enumeration period under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, only about 50 per cent of the enumeration forms (EFs) in Tamil Nadu have been digitised so far with the Election Commission of India (ECI) ruling out extending the deadline.

Only 327 booth-level officers (BLOs) of the total 68,467 have completed 100 per cent of their work, even as 6.16 crore voters (96.22 per cent) have been handed over the EFs since the exercise began on November 4.

As concerns mounted that lakhs of EFs may not be digitised before the draft electoral list is to be published on December 8, Archana Patnaik, Chief Electoral Officer, Tamil Nadu, said the BLOs are racing against time to collect EFs from voters and digitise them.

“We will be able to complete the exercise on time. As we speak, about 50 per cent of the EFs distributed have been received and are being digitised by the BLOs across the State. As far as Chennai is concerned, 96.27 per cent voters received EFs out of which 33.59 per cent have been received and are being digitised,” Patnaik told a press conference here.

To a specific questions, she said there was no plan as of now to extend the last date for submitting the EFs. “We will publish the draft electoral rolls on December 8 following which people can file appeals and objections,” the seasoned bureaucrat said.

On fears of names being removed from the electoral rolls, Patnaik said the Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued clear instructions that reasons should be prescribed for removing one’s name from the list. She also said about 83,256 officials, including BLOs and supervisors, are involved in the mammoth exercise aided by 33,00 volunteers.

Patnaik’s press conference came amid fears expressed by political parties in Tamil Nadu, especially the ruling DMK, that all EFs submitted by voters may not be digitised before December 4. The parties had appealed to the ECI to accelerate the process of digitising the EFs so that no voter is left out of the exercise.

The CEO also said Tamil Nadu has the highest number of booth-level agents (BLAs) of political parties at 2.45 lakhs who are also involved in the process. “We have to ensure that every eligible citizen has to be included in the voters’ list. We have also appointed additional BLOs to expedite the work,” she added.