Electoral roll revision targets Modi146;s constituency

Officially, the main reason given for the move is the demographic changes that have taken place in the constituency, forming part of the eastern segment of the commercial capital of the state.

According to officials, it is the shifting nature of the population in some constituency pockets that has resulted in deletion of as many as 10,502 voters from Maninagar against the total deletion of 44,911 votes from all the 21 assembly constituencies in the district.

The next highest deletion has been recorded in Danilimda, a new constituency formed after the bifurcation of Sarkhej. The total number of deleted voters from Danilimda is 9,410. Next comes Dhandhuka 4,527 voters, Viramgam 3,065 voters and Sanand 2,807 voters. All are BJP-dominated areas.

The recent deletions include the names of 275 Bangladeshis, who found a place in the electoral list due to some negligence by the electoral staff. Senior electoral officials said they deleted all the Bangladeshi names as soon as the report reached them.

According to election officials, it was not immediately possible for the electoral staff to identify bogus voters, as the Bangladeshis lived among the migrants from West Bengal and shared many similarities with them.

Meanwhile, a special drive will be taken up on November 11 and 16 in order to correct the names in the electoral rolls. Electoral staff and representatives of political parties will be present at every poll booth in all the constituencies. The election department has already put up hoardings all over the district to inform the public about the exercise.

District Collector Hareet Shukla said the total number of voters enrolled so far is a little over 45.11 lakh, including 23.43 lakh males and 21.70 lakh females.