The Kerala High Court on Tuesday sought the response of the State Election Commission (SEC) to a writ petition challenging the decision of the commission to conduct the local body polls based on the electoral roll prepared for the 2015 local body polls.
The notice was issued on a petition filed by Sooppy Narikkatterui and P. Hashig, Indian Union Muslim League leaders in Kozhikode.
‘Use 2019 list’
The petition sought a directive to the commission to prepare the electoral roll on the basis of the draft electoral roll prepared for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The petitioner pointed out that as per Section 16 (2) of the Kerala Panchayati Raj Act, a draft electoral roll shall be published at the respective panchayat and village offices and at the headquarters of the block and taluk offices for voters to verify it.
The final list should be published after considering the objections and applications. The election to the local bodies will be held in October 2020.
The SEC had now issued a directive to the election officers to renew the electoral roll of all local bodies keeping the voters’ list of 2015 as the draft roll.
They said that the electoral roll was renewed for the Assembly election in 2016 and later for the Lok Sabha elections.
If the electoral roll in 2015 was taken as the draft for the local body polls, it would cause huge inconvenience to voters to enter their names on the list.
According to the petitioner, more than 90% of the voters who were to be included in the new list were already in the electoral roll prepared for the Lok Sabha election 2019.
