THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Electoral Officer Rathan U Kelkar clarified that there is no need for doubt or to raise concern in the revision of the active voter list in Kerala and that the process will proceed with transparency. The CEO said that no eligible person will be left out of the list, and any Indian citizen who has completed 18 years of age and does not have any disqualification will have the opportunity to vote.

Procedures in Kerala?
=Initial efforts have been started. We will reach out to the voters once the schedule is ready. A meeting of political parties has been called on September 20. Awareness will be made available to the people as well.
The Central Election Commission had given instructions the other day to prepare for the implementation of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) nationwide. Most of the election officers informed the meeting that the initial steps will be completed this month.

Interaction with the people?
=Anyone can download the application related to SIR and get information online. Apart from this, BLOs will visit the houses directly. 12 documents including Aadhaar can be provided as proof. Non-resident voters need not worry. Everything can be done online.

Are the documents available to the voters?
= Discussions were held with the heads of the departments of Law, Local Government, Finance, Revenue etc. of the state government. They informed that all twelve documents required for SIR have been distributed correctly in Kerala. They have assured that if anyone does not have the documents, they will take action to provide them within two weeks.

Will the votes of migrant workers not be repeated?
=That is a challenge. Their documents will be scrutinized carefully. Steps will be taken to ensure that they do not have votes in their own country.

What is the benefit of SIR?
=The main benefit is that the voter list will be clean. Complaints of double voting are being raised widely. It can be eliminated. The previous SIR in Kerala was held in 2002. The eligibility of all those who have acquired the right to vote after that will be verified again. A completely new voter list will come out.

Will the assembly elections be based on this?
=If the SIR schedule is ready, it can be completed within three months. First, the draft voter list will be published. The next phase is to resolve the complaints. In the third phase, the final voter list will be published. It is hoped that three months will be enough for all this. It is expected that the assembly elections can be held using the new voter list.