No Dubious Voters in Meghalaya: Chief Election Officer

Meghalaya government today claimed that there were no "dubious" voters in the hill state.

"There are no doubtful voters in Meghalaya. 'Dubious' or 'D' voter category is applicable only in Assam as they are yet to have the EPIC card system", state Chief Election Officer P Naik told reporters.

The Election official, however, said, "If there are any such voters, people should come forward and let us know of these people".

According to the official, "Anybody can file their objection against those ineligible voters and the election department will take action as per law".

Meghalaya with a population of nearly three million has completed registering 13.75 lakh eligible voters. The projected voters on the basis of census population is 14.9 lakh.

On the low registration of voters, Naik said, "No state can have 100 per cent enrolment. We are somewhere in the middle compared to percentage of enrolment of other states in the country", admitting that there was pressure from the Election Commission to increase the enrolment of voters.

He said, "The electoral rolls are prepared on the basis that no eligible voter is to be left out and no ineligible voter is to be included and there are mechanisms for check and balance."

Special counters or voter’s facilitation cells (VFC) have been set up in all the districts and sub-divisions of the state for issue of forms for inclusion, deletion, transfer, correction of names in the electoral roll in accordance with the directives of the Election Commission of India, the official said.

On the alleged issuance of residential certificates by few elected representatives in the state, Naik said, “As per the rule of the Election Commission, certificates issued by elected representatives having vested interest are not at all acceptable.”

He said, "We do not entertain such certificates from MLAs".

The election official also clarified that those Nepalese who are residents of the state and have citizen certificates are eligible to vote.

Tibetans residing in the state, about 700 of them, are not eligible to vote, he added.