The percentage of voting in recent Mumbai Corporation elections was 57 and not 46 as reported in media, former Petroleum Minister Ram Naik on Monday said and demanded that the electoral rolls should be prepared afresh.
"The rolls should be prepared de novo to maintain the sanctity of the democratic electoral process," Naik told reporters at BJP office in Mumbai.
Naik said he has written to Neela Satyanarayan, State Election Commissioner and Devashish Chakravarti, Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra in this regard.
"While announcing the voting percentage in the recent municipal elections, Satyanarayan expressed her disappointment about only 46 per cent turnout in Mumbai. Media as well as political annalists also offered their comments about the lower percentage," he said.
"It is obvious that electoral rolls include nearly 20 percent duplicate names. Considering this, the 46 percentage of voting would become 57.5 percent. This will reveal that poll percentage in Mumbai was more compared to other municipal corporations," Naik said.
The residential mobility of Mumbai citizens is very high, Naik said. However, neither shifting houses nor deaths are accounted automatically in the electoral rolls, he added.
After shifting, new names are added on basis of applications but those names are not deleted from the old rolls, he said.
Citing his personal experience in recent election, Naik said, names of his son-in-law Chandrashekhar Kulkarni and daughter Vishakha Kulkarni appeared at three places in the rolls, though they have written to the election authorities to to make necessary changes.
"The only way to end this confusion of electoral rolls is to prepare de novo electoral rolls. This will also help to maintain the sanctity of electoral rolls which is so necessary for effective democratic functioning," Naik said.
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