Udupi achieves 94% digitisation of electoral forms; concerns over booth allocation
Udupi Deputy Commissioner T.K. Swaroopa announced on Wednesday that the district has achieved 93.95% progress in digitising enumeration forms under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Speaking at a review meeting in Manipal, she said that 9,99,534 of the 10,63,876 forms distributed have been digitised so far.
The revision exercise has also brought to light data on voter eligibility issues. According to the Deputy Commissioner, 21,186 voters were found to be deceased, while 64,328 voters were reported to have migrated, remained absent, or had duplicate entries. This includes 29,756 cases of permanent migration, 8,250 duplicate entries, 4,933 absentees, and 203 other cases.
Ms. Swaroopa also stated that the number of polling booths in the district would increase from 1,112 to 1,243 shortly. She assured that electoral rolls would be prepared so that every voter has a polling booth within a 2 km radius of their residence.
The door-to-door collection of information using enumeration forms will continue until August 8. The Deputy Commissioner urged voters who have not yet filled in the forms to do so immediately and submit them to the concerned Booth Level Officers.
During the meeting, representatives of political parties raised a specific grievance: members of the same family residing in one place are often allotted polling booths at different locations, causing inconvenience. They urged the Deputy Commissioner to ensure that all members of a family are assigned to the same booth so they can exercise their franchise together.
Those present at the meeting included Additional Deputy Commissioner Abid Gadyal, Congress representative Habib Ali, JD(S) representatives Jayaram Acharya and Jagadish Acharya, and BJP representatives Chandra Shekhar Prabhu and Srikant Nayak, among others.
In a related development, Dakshina Kannada District Electoral Officer issued a statement on Saturday stating that out of 18,03,766 voters and an equal number of forms distributed in the district, 16,43,831 forms have been digitised so far.
