Gujarat Assembly Election 2017: Voters' names will not be deleted from final list, says EC

Gandhinagar: The Election Commission on Wednesday assured that voters’ names will not be deleted from the final electoral roll during the coming Assembly elections in Gujarat. [caption id=“attachment_4144193” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] During the local bodies elections in the state in 2015, a massive controversy erupted after a large number of voters across the state found that their names had been deleted from voters’ list at the last moment without any prior intimation. Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Gujarat BB Swain on Wednesday said that there won’t be a repeat of the 2015 controversy. “Since there was a controversy about the deletion of names in the past, we had urged the EC to put in place a system to ban deletion of names from the final roll. The EC has agreed to our request,” Swain told reporters. “We want to assure voters that no names will be deleted from the final list till the end of this election. However, people can still approach us to include their names in the voters’ list if they have been left out,” he said. The polling will take place on 9 and 14  December and votes will be counted on 18 December. Voters from the constituencies where elections are to be held on 9 December can submit forms for inclusion in the list by 10 November. For the second phase voters, the final date for submitting forms for inclusion in the list is 16 November.