Bengaluru: With complaints emerging over delayed notices and confusion over changes in electoral-roll details during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), chief electoral officer (CEO) Anbu Kumar Wednesday directed district officials and electoral registration officers to ensure timely delivery of notices and completion of hearings.The CEO’s office also clarified that electors may find changes in the part and serial numbers under which their names appeared earlier because of rationalisation of polling stations and re-serialisation of electors. Electors have been advised to search for their details using their EPIC number on voters.eci.gov.in or through the ECINET mobile app.The Election Commission has scheduled special weekend campaigns on Sept 19 and 20 for registration and correction of electoral details through Forms 6, 7 and 8. Electors can use the drives to seek inclusion of names, deletion of entries or corrections in existing electoral-roll details.Call to provide one-year window for NRIsRajyotsava Award recipient and senior NRI community member Mohamad Meeran Saheb has urged the CEO to provide NRIs a one-year window to complete voter-list verification and submit the required documents.In a representation to the CEO, Meeran, who has lived in Dubai since 1974, said several young NRIs, particularly from Udupi and Karwar, had approached him after their names were deleted or kept under objection during SIR.He said some NRIs had contacted booth-level officers and were reportedly advised to travel to India before Sept 20 to produce additional documents relating to citizenship and other particulars. Many NRIs who have lived abroad for decades, he said, may not have easy access to old documents at short notice. Meeran suggested that NRIs be allowed to submit applications and available documents online for preliminary verification, with deficiencies clearly communicated to them. They could then appear before the BLO concerned during their next visit to India within a year.He also urged the authorities to explore verification through Indian missions and consulates abroad, wherever legally permissible. The proposed extension, he said, would ensure eligible voters are not denied an opportunity to restore their names merely because they cannot travel to India within a few weeks.CJP: Provide substitute teachersDrawing attention to disruption in classrooms during the SIR process, Cockroach Janatha Party (CJP) has demanded that the govt provide substitute teachers or make alternative arrangements to ensure learning is not affected. CJP co-convenor Ashutosh Ranka and national secretary Afreen Nawaz said their delegation had visited four govt schools in Bengaluru and found that the deployment of teachers for SIR duties had left only a small number available to conduct regular classes. “Teachers are for teaching, not for removing voters,” said Ranka.“Taken together, around five months of the academic year are being used up for various non-teaching responsibilities assigned to teachers, reducing the time available for their primary responsibility of educating children,” he added. The delegation also raised concerns over toilet hygiene, maintenance and deteriorating infrastructure. The visits were part of the Karnataka team’s wider School Thik Karo campaign.
