Only Electoral Registration Officers authorised to modify voter list: Maha CEO

Mumbai, Oct 18 (IANS) The Maharashtra State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Chocklingam denied charges made by opposition parties that voters are added and removed at specific times, as someone outside the Election Commission is handling this. 

The CEO in an eight-page release said, “The process of correcting and rectifying errors in the voter lists of the assembly constituencies is ongoing. For this, the Election Commission of India has made an extremely secure portal available. Apart from the voter registration officer, no one else can make changes to the voter list. No representative of any political party is connected with the office of the Chief Electoral Officer and the Election Commission of India. Therefore, the information disseminated in this regard is completely baseless and factless.”

The CEO’s clarification comes especially in the wake of an opposition delegation meeting him on October 14, and later they met Chocklingam and also the state election commissioner (SEC) on October 15, demanding that the elections to the local and civic bodies should be postponed until the Election Commission rectifies errors in the voters' list. The opposition raised concerns over irregularities in the voters' list.

According to the release, the State Election Commission has published the voter list as of July 1, 2025, for claims and objections regarding local self-government institution elections. The Commission has provided a deadline for claims and objections. 

As mentioned in the said published list, if there are multiple entries of one person, discrepancies like errors in name, age, address, etc. in the voters' details need corrections. In such cases, the concerned voter registration officer of the Legislative Assembly constituency will decide after conducting an inquiry based on the applications filed.

“In the state, there are approximately 9 crore 80 lakh voters, and they are divided into approximately 1 lakh polling stations. The electoral registration officers concerned have been given full authority to make corrections, inclusions, or deletions in the voter list.

In the state, there are 288 electoral registration officers, and officers of the deputy divisional officer rank are also there. 

Among them are assistant electoral registration officers of the rank of Tahsiladar. The voter registration process is carried out according to the procedure prescribed by the Representation of the People Act, the Electoral Registration Rules, and the guidelines of the Election Commission of India,” said the release.

Both the Election Commission of India and the State Election Commission are independent statutory bodies. As per constitutional provisions, the responsibility of preparing voter lists for elections to local self-government institutions in the state is entrusted to the State Election Commission.

“As per the provisions in the acts governing local self-government institutions in the state, the voter list prepared by the Election Commission of India for the state legislative assembly elections is used by the State Election Commission for local body elections,” said the release. 

“For the upcoming elections to local self-government institutions conducted by the State Election Commission, the electoral rolls of the Assembly constituencies updated up to 01.07.2025 have been obtained from the Election Commission of India and have been certified by the State Election Commission through the District Administration,” said the release.

If a voter changes his address, he applies for voter registration at the new location by filling out Form 8. At such a time, the name of the voter is first included in the new place. The voter registration officer of the new constituency does the work of including the name, and after the entry is made, the work of deleting the voter's original location is done by the original voter registration officer based on Form 7. Special care is taken to avoid duplication of any voter's name. Therefore, sometimes a voter can appear at two places for some time, said the release.

According to the CEO, after October 2024, the program of summary revision of the Assembly electoral rolls was announced by the Election Commission of India. 

In each month from November 2024 to September 2025, a summary of inclusions, deletions, and corrections made in each electoral roll was made available on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer, Maharashtra, in the prescribed format issued by the Election Commission of India.

This was done so that political parties recognised by the Election Commission could communicate it to their party workers.

Under the special revision program conducted by the Election Commission of India, the process of making new inclusions, deletions, corrections in names, or making corrections in the electoral rolls of the Assembly electoral rolls being prepared is done through special revision.

--IANS

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