Jagran correspondent, Jamshedpur. The performance of Jamshedpur East assembly constituency in Jharkhand's ongoing voter list matching with old records i.e. pre-SIR mapping has been the most disappointing in the entire state. Till now, only 29 percent work has been completed here, while Littipara assembly constituency is at the top with 83 percent mapping.
Similarly, Jamshedpur West assembly constituency is also lagging far behind with 36 percent mapping. On an average, 70 percent work has been completed in the entire state, but in view of the slow pace in Jamshedpur and East Singhbhum, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) K Ravi Kumar has visited the city and given strict instructions to the officials to contact the voters by going door-to-door.
The work of matching the list of 2025 with the Aadhaar voter list of 2003 is going on in the state since the month of October. Its primary deadline was set for November 15, but due to non-completion of the work, it is now targeted to be completed by the end of December.
In this mega campaign, 29,562 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have been deployed for verification of about 2.65 crore voters of the state. The Chief Electoral Officer said that while 75 percent mapping has been completed in the rural areas of the state, this figure is limited to only 55 percent in the urban areas.
Many practical problems are emerging behind the slow pace of mapping in urban areas like Jamshedpur. The Chief Electoral Officer, after visiting the Moon City area of Jamshedpur West, said that in the year 2003, this entire area used to be farmland and there was no polling station there. Now a large population has settled there and many voters have come from other states and started living here. In such a situation, the matching process is being hampered due to their or their ancestors' names not being in the 2003 list. This is why it is taking time to gather accurate information.
Large scale irregularities in the voter list have also been detected during this extensive verification process. According to the mapping data done so far, about three and a half lakh voters who have died have been identified across the state.
Apart from this, more than three lakh 60 thousand voters have shifted to other places. During investigation, one lakh 14 thousand duplicate voters were also found, while two lakh 20 thousand voters were found absent at their addresses. The voter list is being purified by removing all these discrepancies.
CEO K Ravi Kumar, after inspecting several booths in East Singhbhum district, clarified that accurate mapping is the basis of a strong and error-free voter list. He has instructed the officials that BLOs should go to the homes of voters whose data is not matching with the old records and do physical verification.
He stressed that the objective of this process is to ensure that not a single eligible voter's name is left out of the list and that the identity of every voter is completely confirmed. Officials have now started a door-to-door campaign to include the missing people in the list and verify them.