Ranchi: With limited time left for claims and objections under Jharkhand’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a sizeable number of polling stations continue to report very low applications for inclusion of new voters.The office of the chief electoral officer (CEO) on Sunday revealed that a total of 4,54,189 Form-6 applications have been received in the state till September 12.However, the polling-station-wise picture shows that applications remain concentrated in a relatively small number of booths.Of Jharkhand’s 31,892 polling stations, 75 has not received a single Form-6 application, while 5,591 booths have received only one to five applications. Together, 5,666 polling stations, or nearly 18% of all booths, have received five or fewer applications.A further 8,618 polling stations have received six to 10 Form-6 applications, while 11,329 booths have received 11 to 20 applications. Only 2,203 polling stations have crossed the 30-application mark.Zero-application booths are concentrated in Ranchi district, which accounts for 62 of 75 such polling stations. At the constituency level, Kanke (Scheduled Caste) has the highest concentration with 52 polling stations reporting zero Form-6 applications.The figures come as the Election Commission’s deadline for claims and objections approaches on September 15. The final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on October 19.State CEO K Ravi Kumar on Sunday appealed to eligible young voters, who have turned 18 or will be 18 on the qualifying date of October 1, to submit Form-6 before the deadline.He said that he has also asked political parties to mobilise their BLA-2 representatives to identify and assist eligible young voters in their polling-station areas.
