3.41 lakh electorates added, 1.1 lakh deleted
*10726 names corrected, 31180 transposed to other Wards
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 20: The State Election Commission (SEC) today published final electoral rolls for Panchayats taking total number of voters to over 7 million with the addition of 3,41,072 new electorates.
The final electoral rolls of Panchayats were released today by State Election Commissioner BR Sharma concluding over two months long exercise initiated on November 11, 2024.
Excelsior had few days before exclusively reported that the Panchayat electorates have reached close to 7 million following voter revision exercise undertaken by the SEC.
Officials said a total of 3,41,072 new voters have been added to the Panchayat electorates with January 1, 2025 taken as qualifying date. A total of 1,10,768 voters were deleted due to death, shifting or other reasons.
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A total of 10726 voter names were corrected while 31180 electorates were transposed to other Panchayat Halqas/Wards.
“All this has taken total number of electorates in the Panchayats to 70,00,670 including 35,66,475 males, 34,34,048 females and 147 third genders,” the officials said, adding the electoral rolls are available in the offices of District Panchayat Election Officers, EROs, AEROs and PBEOs.
Officials said the exercise for annual revision of Panchayat electoral rolls concluded today with the publication of final electoral rolls with January 1, 2025 as qualifying date. Additions, deletions and changes in the entries of electoral rolls were incorporated during the exercise which started on November 11 last year.
The Commission, however, said that process of revision of Panchayat electoral rolls is a continuous updation exercise and all eligible voters who are 18 years of age as on 1-1-2025 and their names don’t figure in the final electoral rolls can get themselves enrolled by filling the requisite form and depositing same with the concerned ERO/AERO.
However, whether the Panchayat elections will be held in March-April this year or not depend on submission of report by a Commission set up by the Government to determine percentage of reservation to be given to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Panchayat and Municipal elections.
Submission of report by the OBC Commission is mandatory before initiating the exercise for conducting Panchayat and Municipal elections. Presently, the women have 33 percent reservations in Urban and Rural Local Bodies while SCs and STs have been given reservations based on population.
“Once the Commission submits its report, the Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department will undertake an exercise to reserve the Wards for women, SCs, STs and OBCs in Panchayats followed by delimitation, if required,” the officials said.
Because of the reservations to OBCs for the first time in these bodies in Jammu and Kashmir, elections to Panchayats and Municipalities, which were due to be held in October-November 2023, have been delayed.
The Municipalities, Panchayats and BDCs are now without elected members for more than one year. While term of the Municipalities ended in October-November 2023, the Panchayats completed their tenure on January 9, 2024. Since term of the BDCs was co-terminus with the Panchayats, they too ceased to exist when five-year tenure of the Panchayats ended.
However, the District Development Councils whose elections were held for the first time in Jammu and Kashmir in December 2020 have their term till January 2026.
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