Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer S Chockalingam has directed district election officers to clear all pending claims and objections to the draft electoral roll by October 26, after election offices received more than 15.22 lakh applications for voter registration, corrections, shifting and deletions.
The instructions require district election officials to complete field verification, review pending applications regularly and ensure that no application remains undecided beyond the deadline. The directive covers applications received between August 31 and October 15.
According to data cited by state electoral officials, district election offices received 15,22,438 forms during this period. Form 6 applications for new voter registration accounted for 9,80,794 applications, or about 64% of the total. Form 8 applications for corrections and shifting of residence made up 5,04,342 applications, or 33%.
A further 37,302 Form 7 applications, representing about 2.5% of the total, sought deletion of names from the electoral roll or raised objections against entries. Chockalingam directed officials to decide Form 7 applications only after issuing due notice and providing an opportunity for a hearing.
The process is governed by Rule 16 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Under the rule, lists of claims and objections must be displayed on the notice boards of electoral registration officers for seven days before decisions are taken. This display period allows affected individuals to respond before an application is accepted or rejected.
The volume of applications places the focus on the administrative capacity of district election offices to complete verification and disposal within the specified timeline. New registrations, corrections, address shifts and deletion objections require different forms of scrutiny, while deletion applications carry an additional procedural requirement of notice and hearing.
State electoral officials said there had been no change in Form 6 at the time of the directive. Form 6 remains the application used for inclusion of a new name in the electoral roll, while Form 8 is used for corrections and shifting. Form 7 is used for deletion requests and objections.
District election officers are expected to complete the pending process by October 26. The directive also requires them to monitor pendency regularly as the deadline approaches.
