Observer urges officials to ensure enrolment of more first time voters

Electoral Roll Observer Mahesan Kasirajan addressing an all-party meeting at the Madurai Collectorate on Sunday. Collector S. Natarajan is also seen.

Electoral roll observer Mahesan Kasirajan urged officials from the Madurai district administration to conduct more special camps in colleges to ensure that all eligible first time voters are enroled.

Presiding a meeting at the Collectorate here on Sunday in the presence of Collector S. Natarajan and representatives of recognised political parties, he said that if any details were missing in the forms submitted by the public for addition or change of details in the electoral roll, the booth level officers must take extra effort to visit the persons concerned at their homes to get the missing details.

Representatives from political parties stressed on the need for identifying deceased persons and removing their names from the electoral roll, particularly in Tiruparankundram Assembly constituency, that is seeing a by-election, to ensure that their votes are not misused.

P. Manikandan, a block-level functionary of the Congress party, appealed to the officials for additional efforts to ensure that all members of the transgender community are added to the electoral roll. “For instance, the Usilampatti constituency has only two persons in the ‘Others (transgender)’ category. I know for sure that there are tens of people residing in Usilampatti town alone,” he said.

Special camp

Meanwhile, at the special camp held on Sunday as part of the special summary revision of the electoral roll in the district in all the polling locations, a total of 19,177 forms for addition, removal and change of details in the electoral roll were received.