DW Bureau | Chandigarh, Oct 13 : Punjab Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anindita Mitra said on Tuesday that parties across the political spectrum kept a positive approach and extended support during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.  This comes after representatives from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) praised Mitra following the publication of the final electoral rolls in the state, even as protests intensify across the country against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of irregularities in the SIR process. Speaking to Agencies, the Punjab CEO cited that the draft electoral roll was published on August 13 and contained around 1,93,94000 registered voters.

Mitra said: "We had sought claims and objections for them. We asked people who were left out or who wanted to create new voter IDs, to fill Form-6." "During this (SIR) exercise around 7,97,000 new voters were added. The final draft contains more than two crore voters," the Punjab CEO added. Mitra mentioned that during the SIR, 20,66,000 enumeration forms were not returned to the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) due to various reasons. "More than five lakh voters had died, so obviously they had to be removed from the electoral rolls. There were 1,19,000 double entries due to clerical error," she said while emphasising that one of those was removed but "voters were not deleted".

She said that similarly, nine lakh people had permanently shifted who were also removed. The CEO also added that of the eight lakh people who were added to the electoral rolls in Punjab, around three lakh are first time voters. "This means that around five lakh people were either not enrolled as voters or had filed Form-6 after being left out from the draft rolls." Mitra said that political parties across the spectrum had a positive approach during the SIR process in Punjab. "Almost 90,000 Booth Level Agents (BLAs) were appointed by political parties. There was no booth that functioned without a BLA. Whenever we were unable to establish contact with any voters, we shared the concerned names with the BLA. In many booths, BLAs helped us to connect with voters. This is why all the deletions from the electoral rolls were genuine," she added.

"In cases where voters had died, we had collected death certificates of each one of them. In case of double entries, we have filled in the EPIC number of the second entry (as proof). For those permanently shifted, we have noted down their new addresses and even certified that from the Departmental Head," the Punjab CEO said. "Therefore, political parties helped us a lot. Every ASDD (Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate) list has been signed by at least two political parties each," she underlined. Mitra also added that if any genuine voter is still left out since it is a big exercise, "We will organise special camps where the BLOs will first make people go through the voter lists and if anyone is still left out, despite our best efforts, they can fill Form-6 there itself." "Their (voters') names will be included in the supplement lists (that will be published later)," she said.