Final electoral roll of J-K has 7.72 lakh new voters

The final electoral roll of Jammu and Kashmir was published on Friday with the highest-ever net addition of more than 7.72 lakh voters, officials said.

The final electoral roll has a total of 83,59,771 electors -- 42,91,687 males, 40,67,900 females and 184 third gender -- Joint Chief Electoral Officer of Jammu and Kashmir Anil Salgotra said.

The release of the electoral roll paves the way for holding of Assembly polls in the Union Territory, the first since Article 370 provisions were abrogated and Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into Union territories in 2019.

"There has been a net increase of 7,72,872 electors in the final electoral roll, i.e. a 10.19 per cent net increase of the registered electors over the draft roll," he said.

The highest number of additions during a special summary revision (SSR) was less than two lakh earlier.

"This was for the first time in the history of Jammu and Kashmir that more than 11 lakh names were included in a single SSR period," Salgotra said.

During this period, a record 11,40,768 claims were received through Form 6 for inclusion of names in the electoral rolls across the Union territory.

Out of these, 11,28,672 claims were accepted and only 12,096 claims were rejected.

This included 3,01,961 claims of inclusion in the age group of 18-19.

A total of 4,12,157 requests for deletion were received, out of which 3,58,222 were accepted and 53,935 were rejected.

There has been an addition of 613 new polling stations in the Union territory, he said.

The gender ratio of the final electoral Roll has increased from 921 to 948, he added.

Salgotra said that gender ratio has shown a remarkable increase by 27 points and stands at 948, which is much above the Census gender ratio of Jammu and Kashmir.

Overall there has been a six percentage points increase in the elector-population ratio to 58, he added.

He said the photo coverage in the electoral roll remained at 99.99 per cent showing that no new entry without a proper photograph has been allowed.

There are 57,253 marked PwD electors in the final electoral roll, an increase of 46 per cent over the draft roll, he added.

He said that though the special summary revision-2022 culminated with the publication of the final electoral roll on November 25, the process of continuous updation will continue and any eligible citizen who has been left out of the electoral roll can apply through any of the modes of registration, i.e. online though NVSP portal, voter helpline app, voter portal or offline by making an application to the ERO concerned.

With the implementation of four qualifying dates as part of the commission's electoral reforms, the qualifying date would get updated to 1st January 2023, after 31st December, 2022, paving way for all those young citizens who have attained the qualifying age of 18 years between 1st October 2022 and 1st January 2023 to get registered, he said.

The emphasis of the Election Commission led by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on the registration of young voters as well as the marginalised sections of society, including persons with disabilities, third gender, women, etc., has yielded positive results.

Claims and objections were accepted from September 15 to October 25, i.e. for a period of 40 days.

This was followed by a period of 15 days till November 10 for the disposal of all claims and objections.