Ohol, who hopes to vote in the upcoming corporation election as well as the general election next year, plans to re-register on the Election Commission website.
Mahesh Mani, another city resident, had applied for a change in his address early this month. He, too, has not received any response from the Election Commission. Ohol and Mani are among the many who have not received any response to their applications.
“Normally, after submission of application, a receipt is sent to the registered mobile number of the applicant. However, I have not received any intimation from the authorities,” said Ohol.
Citizens across the state are facing similar issues after registering on the Election Commission website for addition or correction on the electoral roll. Many of them have shot emails to the state electoral office and expressed their anger on social media.
The state government has been conducting special drives for new voters’ registration but with no intimation regarding the registration of applications, citizens are confused about the entire process. A recent report by the chief electoral office stated that less than 10% of the youth in the 18-19 age bracket are registered as voters in the state.
Like Ohol, Anushka Rao, another 17-year-old, registered on the Election Commission website as an advanced voter. However, she, too, has not received any confirmation about the same.
Not just applications for registration as new voters, even those for change in address or change in constituency have not been cleared for over a month.
Mani, who has applied both online and offline for a change in her address from Rasta Peth to Hadapsar, has not received any intimation regarding the same.
Hemant Mali, another resident whose name reflects twice on the voter roll, had applied for deletion of her name two months ago, but too little avail.
“I can still see my name appearing twice on the electoral roll,” he said.
Election officials confirmed that they were updating the software, so were unable to process any applications for about a month now. They said that citizens can file applications, but those will be approved after the middle of next month.
State chief electoral officer Shrikant Deshpande said that all applications were pending for over a month.
“The new system is expected to start by mid-June as the process of data migration to the new system of Eronet is underway. The pending applications will be cleared by June-end and citizens intimated about the same,” Deshpande said.
With a huge number of photo similar entries in the state’e electoral roll, election officials on Thursday told TOI that the photo similar entries’ exercise has been temporarily suspended by the Election Commission of India
“All states have been told to temporarily suspend the weeding out of photo similar entries till further orders due to technical issues,” said an official. Work was earlier on in the state to weed out a huge number of photo similar entries, the official said.
