Ranchi: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Jharkhand has entered a crucial phase, but the Election Commission remains concerned over the sluggish pace of fresh voter enrolment despite more than 6.16 lakh claims and applications being filed so far.On Sunday alone, the state received 16,128 Form-6 applications for inclusion of new voters and 9,608 Form-8 applications for corrections or updates. However, data from polling stations shows that new registrations remain well below expected levels.Chief electoral officer (CEO) K Ravi Kumar said applications for new enrolment generally rise by 6-8% of the electorate over a two-year period, but Jharkhand has recorded a much smaller increase.“Generally, there should be an increase of 6% to 8% in applications for enrolment of new voters over two years. In Jharkhand, however, the increase has been only 1.5-2% so far,” Kumar said.Till Sunday, as many as 738 polling stations had not received a single Form-6 application, while 10,936 booths received only one to five applications each. Together, 11,674 polling stations — nearly 37% of the 31,892 booths covered in the bulletin — recorded five or fewer applications for inclusion of new voters.The CEO’s office said 3,75,246 Form-6 applications had been received since the claims and objections period began on Aug 5. Another 2,38,156 Form-8 applications were filed for correction or updating of electoral details. The window will remain open till Sept 15. Claims and objections must be disposed of by Oct 14, and the final electoral roll will be published on Oct 19.The data also revealed sharp regional variations, with correction requests outnumbering fresh enrolment applications in several districts. Ranchi logged the highest number of Form-8 applications at 36,381, followed by Giridih (32,930), Hazaribag (26,359), East Singhbhum (23,007) and Dhanbad (17,820).The exercise also received 2,762 Form-7 applications for objections or deletions and 72 Form-6A applications from overseas Indian electors. West Singhbhum topped Form-7 filings with 536, followed by Deoghar (415), Palamu (157) and Latehar (107).Form-8 can also be used to shift family members to the same polling station if they are listed at different booths within an area.
