Our Correspondent
KOHIMA, APRIL 2
Chief Electoral Officer (Nagaland) Sanjay Kumar stressed on the need to improve the health of the Electoral Rolls (ER) Rationalizing the Polling Stations (PSs) boundaries with the support of the citizens. He said this while meeting the political parties based in Nagaland at Raj Bhavan, Kohima today.
One peculiarity about Nagaland, according to the CEO, is that it is the only state in the country, or for that matter in the whole world, which has negative decadal growth. He also said that the state has seen decline in the electoral rolls in the last 5 years. Therefore, he maintained that these are certain things which stand out, and cannot be ignored
The CEO while saying that the electoral roll in the state is in a bad shape, pressed on the need to sensitize the people on this issue, which he said is the most essential condition for a free and fair election. “Let us tackle this issue first and before anything that is related to election,” he added.
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Various political party leaders attending the consultative meeting exchanged views, opinions and suggestions on how to best go about it on the campaign for the purification of electoral rolls in the state.
Sharing his views Apong Pongener, NPF working president suggested that polling officers should not allow household voting. He maintained that it should be ‘one man one vote’ and that there should be proper directives and instructions to the officers concerned to check those irregularities.
NPCC president K Therie cited migration as the cause of multiple entries of names in the e-roll.
Comparing the census and the electoral roll, the NPCC president alleged there are more than 35% bogus votes, whereby the political parties and candidates take advantage of those votes. He remarked that the people should be ashamed of violation of the voting rights, where both the public and officers concerned are responsible for the same.
In order to conduct a free and fair election, Therie suggested for Aadhaar link with electoral and finger printing voting machine, “or else go back to paper ballot system”. He then cited some disadvantages of the present EVM.
Calling other political parties for their support and cooperation for a purified electoral roll, Therie maintained that all the political parties need a resolution on the issue of purification of e-rolls. “Together we can do it,” he added.
Povotso Lohe, former NCP president acknowledging the herculean task of NERP campaign, has sought the support of the state election department officers and staff and the citizens as well.
He opined that the purification stages should start with enumeration and that the enumerators should be honest, sincere, and hardworking and most of all should be above part politics. He also said it is also expected that the state election department and staffs should be above part politics so that the election process of electoral is clean and authentic.
Also sharing his views, BJP president Visasolie Lhoungou said, “Being a Christian state, we should not have waited for this kind of directives and instructions from the Centre, but we ourselves should rectify and purify our e-rolls from before.” The BJP leader is of the view that the e-roll is to be rectified and purified.
