Chennai: District collectors and Chennai corporation commissioner on Monday set the election ball rolling by conducting an all-party meeting. The district collectors, who are also district election officers, interacted with representatives of state and national parties on issues pertaining to voters roll, electoral photo identity cards and co-ordination between parties and election authorities.
In Chennai and Kancheepuram, representatives of major parties including AIADMK, DMK, DMDK, Congress and BJP attended the meeting and pointed out the corrections to be made in voters roll. Opposition DMK led by its organising secretary R.S. Bharathi submitted a representation to chief electoral officer Rajesh Lakhoni seeking appointment of officials working in Central government offices, as observers to rectify the errors on voters list and to conduct field inquiry in the presence of booth level agents of recognised political parties, including DMK.
The petition also requested the election commission of India to take departmental action against erring officials who have failed to publish fair voters rolls. The petition alleged that a few state officers were indulging in activities like inclusion of bogus voters, deletion of valid voters and non-deletion of voters, on account of death, double, multiple entries, shifting and under-age, at the instance of ruling party in the state.
“The officials are not under the control of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and CEO of Tamil Nadu, though they are discharging duties relating to electoral roll works, which are controlled by the Election Commission.
The attitude of not taking of action on applications submitted by our party cadres in the capacity of BLA-2s, clearly shows that the state government officials deputed for duty have not been working to the objective of preparing an error-free voters list,” the petition read.
