Around 25 lakh new voters likely to be enrolled in J&K: Chief Electoral Officer

Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Electoral Officer Hirdesh Kumar on Wednesday said around 25 lakh new voters are expected to be enrolled in the Union Territory as the special summary revision of electoral rolls is being held for the first time after abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.

He also described the ongoing exercise to complete the special summary revision of electoral rolls by November 25 as a "challenging task".

The massive exercise to complete the process in time is going on to ensure that all the eligible voters including those who have attained the age of 18 years on October 1, 2022 or earlier are enrolled to provide an "error-free" final list, Kumar said.

According to the rescheduled timeline issued by the election commission recently, an integrated draft electoral roll will be published on September 15, while the period for filing claims and objections was set between September 15 to October 25 followed by disposal of claims and objections on November 10.

Checking of health parameters and obtaining commission's permission for final publication and updating database and printing of supplements was fixed for November 19 before the publication of final electoral rolls on November 25.

"The special summary revision of electoral rolls is taking place for the first time after January 1, 2019 and so we are expecting massive changes in the voter list given the fact that a large number of youngsters have attained the age of 18 or 18 plus over the past three years.