Journalism of Courage
The month-long voters’ registration drive saw 2.34 lakh new registrations. As per the draft roll declared on Friday by the district election department,there were 8,809 cases of objections,12,140 requess for change in names and addresses and 3,979 cases of change in constituency.
The department said the final publication of electoral rolls will be on January 5 and the date of revision is January 1,2012.
The department carried out the drive so that all eligible voters could get their names included in the electoral rolls before the civic election in February and zilla parishad election in December. “We have received good response from all the 21 Assembly constituencies in the district,” said an official from the district election department. The registrations figures were: Chinchwad with 48,299,Pimpri with 23,494,Bhosri with 47,480,Wadgaonsheri with 13,739,Kothrud with 17,215,Parvati with 12,525,Hadapsar with 8,341,Cantonment with 4,578 and Kasba Peth with 5,720.
Meanwhile,after a poor voters’ turnout at the recent bypoll,BJP city unit president Vikas Mathkari had in a letter to the State Election Commissioner demanded that the voters’ registration drive be extended.
The State Election Commission had launched the drive from October 2 to register new voters. Mathkari said since all the parties were busy with the Khadakwasla Assembly constituency by-election,they could not concentrate on the voters’ registration drive due to the model code of conduct. He said if the Election Commission extended the drive,parties will be able to enroll maximum voters.
