Enrollment of 1 lakh first-time voters

“The Election Commission of India (ECI) has instructed all the chief electoral officers (CEOs) to roll out the enrollment drive to enroll all leftouts with a focuss on the first timers who are of 18 to 21 years,” state CEO FR Kharkongor said.

Addressing newsmen after a meeting with representatives of political parties held here, Kharkongor said the statewide launching of the Mission United, a special enrollment drive at the school/college campuses will be on July 1.

“We however decided to seek the support of the political parties and also engaged local dorbar shnongs to also reach out to non-student youths (who are of 18 to 21 years),” he said.

With Meghalaya presently having a total of 17.19 lakh voters, Kharkongor said, “We are targeting to enroll 1 lakh plus youths across the state through the mission, which will conclude on July 31.”

Out of the projected target, the chief electoral officer said that the maximum gap of people, who are leftout of electoral rolls, is in East Khasi Hills District with 52,000.

“Nongkrem, is one of the constituencies in the district, with the higest gap which is 15,000,” he said while informing that a meeting with all DCs was also held to take steps to bridge this gap.

Asked on the reason for the huge deficit, Kharkongor said the deputy commissioner of East Khasi Hills District has already constituted a small team to look into this polling station wise and a report will soon be submitted.

Only in the state capital, 11,000 forms have been distributed to as many as 110 schools. However in other districts, the respective deputy commissioners are in the process to submit the number of schools/colleges, he added.

According to him, students can fill in the Form-6 (for enrollment) with the assistant of a nodal teacher and need not go to the DC’s office and wait for long time to complete the usual procedural processes.

He however said but for disposal of claims, it will be done as usual where the applicant students will have to personally appear for hearing even as he maintained that only students who are domiciles of the state are eligible to enroll.

Meanwhile, the state CEO also informed that the ECI is also proposing to have the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) in the forthcoming elections in Meghalaya.

“The details as to how many constituencies, they are proposing to have the VVPAT will be known later,” he said.

VVPAT is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system.