Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 11: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh accompanied by Union Minister of State Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, senior BJP leader Anil Baluni and representatives of displaced Kashmiri Pandit community led by Sanjay Ganju and others, today met the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Nasim Zaidi to discuss the issues related to the voter list of the displaced Kashmiri Pandit community.
In a meeting lasting over half-an-hour and attended by the Chief Election Commissioner along with other members of the Commission, Dr Jitendra Singh explained that the issue was two-fold. First, the voter list of displaced Kashmiri Pandit community requires to be revised at the earliest, because many of the elderly persons who figured in the list at the time of migration during 1989-90 are no more alive, whereas many of the youngsters who have since attained the age of 18 years after displacement, do not figure in the voters list. Secondly, he said, the M-Form requirement for displaced Kashmiri voter involves a tedious process with lot of formalities which ends up in discouraging many of the voters from exercising their franchise.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that from his experience of the recent elections, he discovered that a large percentage of Kashmiri Pandit votes were not cast either because of the inability to fulfill the formalities or the disincentive resulting from the time and energy required in doing so. The result of this, he said, is that, on the one hand, the legitimate Kashmiri Pandit voters are deprived of their constitutional right to cast the vote and on the other hand, the election outcome also gets affected.
Speaking to media persons outside the Nirvachan Sadan after meeting the Chief Election Commissioner, Dr Jitendra Singh expressed his satisfaction with the manner the CEC Nasim Zaidi had heard the entire issue with patience and issued prompt instructions that the officials of the Election Commission will jointly sit with the representatives of the Kashmiri Pandit community and sort out the issue at the earliest. According to Dr Jitendra Singh, Zaidi very positively supported the contention that the procedures should be simplified and placed on-line, as far as possible, in order to avoid inconvenience to the Kashmiri Pandit voter and also to avoid the need to undertake frequent visits to the election office for verification of their names in voters lists and other requirements. The follow-up meeting and process to set the mechanism right and make it as simple as possible would be initiated soon, he added.
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