Ranchi: Ensuring that migrants, tribal communities, women and other vulnerable groups are not excluded from electoral rolls dominated the second day of a two-day conference on “Voter Registration and Voter Registers” on Wednesday. The conference featured a panel discussion and six technical sessions.Experts from India and abroad discussed ways to make voter registration more accessible, accurate and responsive, with a particular focus on Jharkhand’s migrant population, tribal communities and challenging terrain.The panel, chaired by former Bihar DGP D N Gautam and co-chaired by Professor Sandeep Shastri, discussed voter awareness, inclusion, ease of voting, uniformity between EPICs and voter lists, women’s participation, internal migration and accountability.Jharkhand chief electoral officer K Ravi Kumar said the conference had moved beyond the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. He said 230 abstracts had been received from more than 800 institutions, of which 80 were shortlisted and 58 selected for presentation.Kumar said India’s electoral system combines safeguards such as field verification, political-party participation, technology-based checks and supervision by the Election Commission of India.
