New names not to be on poll rolls

CHENNAI: The modification of electoral rolls to include the names of recent applicants is not possible ahead of the local body elections due to lack of time for their verification, Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Kumar said on Friday. The CEO said there has been a lot of queries on adding of names in the electoral rolls for the forthcoming elections to the local bodies. As per the rules, a seven days notice, excluding the date of filing of application, had to be given before any addition or deletion in the electoral roll could be effected. “In addition, some minimum processing time is also required and so statutorily, names of people who have applied recently cannot be added in the rolls before the last date of filing nominations for local body elections, that is September 29,” he said.He said, the qualifying date for the purpose of inclusion of names was January 1, 2011. All those who have attained the age of 18 after that date are entitled to get their names included only in the rolls to be published on January 5. 2012.