Delhi: Around 13 lakh non-existent voters removed from roll

New Delhi: Names of around 13 lakh non-existent voters were struck down from city's electoral roll by the Election Commission following a detailed survey. Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Dev said the names of the voters were removed after conducting due verifications.

"We had conducted a house-to-house survey in 2012 in which around 15 lakh voters were identified in the categories of 'shifted, expired and duplicate' voters. After conducting due verifications, names of about 13 lakh people have been taken out from our lists," Dev told reporters.

He said the Election Commission had handed over CD's containing names of these voters to political parties after conducting meetings at the state and district level. It was a "major exercise which has massively enhanced the purity of our electoral rolls", he said.

Dev said the Commission has added 8.18 lakh electors in the electoral rolls last year while from January to June this year, names of 4.5 lakh voters were added. "With this total number of electors in Delhi has reached 1.12 crore," the he said.

Dev said to ensure greater participation of women and youths in assembly elections, Delhi Election Commission will launch a special drive for enrolment of eligible electorate from July 1. It will be last summary revision of the electoral roll before the assembly polls scheduled to be held in November.

"The special summary revision will start on July 1 and continue till July 22. During this period, all those who could not enrol in electoral rolls would be given opportunity to register themselves," Dev said. Under the drive a total of 1,900 camps will be set up across the city.

"This would be the last summary revision of the electoral roll and special focus would be laid to bring more and more youth and women electors," he said. The exercise would begin from July 1 with the publication of draft electoral roll or voters list. It would be displayed at the office of district election officers (DEOs), electoral registration officers (EROs), voter centres and various polling station buildings in the Assembly areas.