Maha chief electoral officer sets Oct 26 deadline to clear claims & objections

Pune: Chief electoral officer S Chockalingam on Saturday directed district election officers to dispose of all pending claims and objections to the draft electoral roll by Oct 26.Chockalingam directed the officers to complete field verification, review pendency regularly and ensure that no application remained pending beyond the deadline. He stressed that Form 7 applications must be decided only after due notice and hearing.District election offices received 15,22,438 voter registration, correction and deletion forms between Aug 31 and Oct 15. Of these, as many as 9,80,794 (around 64%) are Form 6 applications for new voter registration, 5,04,342 (33%) are Form 8 applications for correction and shifting, and 37,302 (2.5%) are Form 7 applications seeking deletion of names or raising objections.Under Rule 16 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, lists of claims and objections must be displayed on notice boards of electoral registration officers for seven days before decisions are taken.State electoral officials said there had been no change in Form 6 yet.