NEW DELHI, 18 December 2006 — Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswamy and the two other election commissioners will visit Uttar Pradesh this week to review preparations for next year’s assembly elections.
Gopalaswamy will visit Lucknow and election commissioners Navin Chawla and S.Y. Quraishi will visit various districts in Bareilly and Allahabad during the week.
Feedback from poll observers showed that although the introduction of grassroot-level officers proved effective in weeding out nonexistent voters, there were many areas of concern that warrant commission’s intervention. Over 2.4 million names of voters who are either dead or who have shifted to different places have been removed from the rolls. The publication of the revised electoral rolls is scheduled for Jan. 3.
In order to ensure that voting is done under clean and updated rolls, the commission has deputed two observers each to bigger electoral divisions such as Agra, Meerut, Kanpur and Lucknow and one observer each to other divisions in the state that has a total of 17 divisions.
Gopalaswamy and his colleagues have made several visits to the state to check on preparations for the elections scheduled for early next year.
Uttar Pradesh Gov. T V Rajeswar has said he has received complaints against some Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers for not being impartial in the recent the civic bodies elections. Addressing officers here, Rajeswar said he had referred the complaints to the authorities concerned. He said the officers were mistaken if they thought their actions would not be noticed.
The people watch everything, the governor said, and added the image of officers would take a severe beating if they were not to be impartial. The governor asked them to remain impartial and not give in to pressure.
The comments follow his earlier remarks on the “partisan” role of the police during the civic elections. That drew a sharp reaction from Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Relations between the chief minister and the governor have come under strain and the leaders of the ruling Samajwadi Party recently met President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to demand Rajeswar’s recall.
