STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: With the announcement of the schedule of the special summary revision of the photo electoral roll for 2024 (January 1, 2024 as the qualifying date), the Election Commission of India has started its preparations for the Lok Sabha poll of 2024.
The Election Commission of India has sent detailed instructions regarding the special summary revision of the photo electoral roll and pre-revision activities to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Assam.
According to Election Department sources in Assam, the department would follow the guidelines in the special summary revision of the photo electoral roll. This special summary revision is crucial, as this roll will be the basis for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll. As per schedule, the Lok Sabha election is due in April–May 2024.
The Election Commission of India informed the state CEO that the revision will have two stages for conducting the revision exercise of the electoral roll: pre-revision activities and revision activities. For the purpose of achieving a good-quality electoral roll, pre-revision activities are given equal weightage as revision activities. As per the Election Commission of India, training of EROs, AEROs, BLOs, and others on all laws and guidelines related to ER, including training on the latest IT applications and systems, is required between June 1 and July 20, 2023.
After this, the BLOs will conduct house-to-house verification from July 21 to August 21. During the field verification, the BLOs will collect information on (a) unenrolled eligible citizens, (b) prospective electors (eligible on January 1, 2014), (c) multiple entries or dead electors permanently shifted, (d) corrections in the electoral roll entries, etc.
Rationalisation/re-arrangements of polling stations, removal of discrepancies in the electoral roll/EPICs, improvement of image quality, ensuring good-quality photographs by replacing blurred, poor-quality, not-to-specified, and non-human images in the roll, wherever necessary, from August 22 to September 29, 2023.
Main revision activities Publication of the integrated draught electoral roll on October 17, 2023. The period for filing claims and objections will be from October 17 to November 30, 2023.
The disposal of claims and objections will be completed by December 26, 2023.
Checking of health parameters and obtaining the Commission's permission for final publication, updating the database and printing supplements will be by January 1, 2024.
The final electoral roll will be published on January 5, 2024.
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