By IANS
Bangalore : The Election Commission Thursday decided to scrap 3.35 million names from Karnataka’s electoral rolls that it said were added in November without verification.
“A review of the rolls has revealed a whopping 3.35 million names were added during the Nov 2-17 revision without verification while no deletions were made,” Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami told reporters here.
“We have directed the state election commission to scrap these names and undertake a fresh revision by the first week of February,” said Gopalaswami.
The poll panel has also directed the chief electoral officer of the state to bring out a draft notification of the electoral rolls by Feb 7.
The commission found that 927,000 names that were added during a fresh revision in some districts were genuine. The names will be included in the draft notification.
“The draft will be submitted to political parties for filing objections, if any. The parties will be able to seek additions or deletions to the rolls over a month after Feb 7.
“A final electoral list will be published by March 10 in the run up to the elections in the state,” Gopalaswami said, but declined to specify the dates for holding the poll.
“There is still time for that (election). Let the electoral rolls be streamlined and notified. I do not want to speculate,” he affirmed.
Asked if the state election would be held in line with the delimitation of the constituencies, Gopalaswami said it was for the central government to decide.
Karnataka is on election mode after the fall of the eight-day BJP-led coalition government Nov 19 following the withdrawal of support by its estranged alliance partner Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S).
The state has been under President’s rule since Nov 28 for a second time and the state assembly was dissolved by parliament.
Gopalaswami along with other two Election Commissioners – Navin Chawla and S.Y. Quraishi – are on a three-day visit to the city to study the state’s preparedness to hold elections.