Port Blair, Oct. 1: The Islands Chief Electoral Officer Jalaj Srivastava called upon all major political parties of the islands to extend their cooperation to ensure the proper updating of the electoral rolls of the region.  Addressing the leaders of major political parties at Secretariat this evening, he informed  that the Election Commission of India ordered for the revision  of electoral rolls of Andaman and Nicobar islands Parliamentary constituency by 1st January, 2013.  Accordingly, the administration released the draft publication of electoral rolls on 1st October.   The political parties and other persons can file their claims and objections on the data of the electoral rolls during the period 1st October to 30th November, 2012.

He also informed that to ensure the accuracy of the data and photographs incorportated in the electoral rolls, special campaigns involving the booth level agents of the political parties   will be held on the Sundays,  7th , 14th and 21st of this month in all the pollcing stations across the islands.  The claims and objections to the electoral rolls will be received during the special campaigns and they will be disposed of latest by 1st December this year.

Responding to the appeal made by the political parties to conduct door to door survey to verify the accuracy of the details in the draft electoral rolls, and thereby ensuring the required deletions and additins in the rolls,  he said polling booth agents of the political parites can be involved in the process before taking part in the special campaigns to be held in their areas.

The electoral roll data along with the photographs of the voters will be updated and preparations for the printing of supplementary list will be made during the full month of December, 2012.  The final publication of the Electoral rolls will be released on 5th January, 2012.

According to Chief Electoral Officer, of the total 2,69, 816 eligible voters in the islands, 74 per cent of the voters have already been enrolled.  Efforts are on to enroll the remaining voters before the publication of final electoral rolls.

During the interaction, Jalaj Srivastava appealed to the media to motivate the people to get their names enrolled in the electoral list. He pointed out that, a special cell has been set up at JNRM to enable the students who attained 18 years of age to enroll themselves in the electoral list.  He is hopeful that the island region with lesser population can update the Electoral rolls with the cent percent enrollment of eligible voters.