NEW DELHI, Aug 1 - With 40 lakh people failing to get their names on the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the poll panel today said an exclusion from this list would not automatically result in their removal from the electoral rolls as registration of voters is decided by election laws.
�This is a draft NRC. After this, in the next one month all these 40 lakh individuals will be informed about the reasons why their names were not included. Thereafter they can file their claims and objections and after a decision on the claims, the final list of the NRC will be published,� Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat told this news agency here.
The CEC said the Chief Electoral Officer of Assam would give a factual report in the coming week on various aspects arising out of the publication of the final draft NRC.
He said people excluded from the NRC would not be automatically removed from the electoral rolls of Assam as the registration process of a voter is governed by three criteria under the Representation of People Act, 1950.
First, the voters need to be citizens of India; secondly, they should be above 18 years of age on January 1 of the year of enrolment, and thirdly, they should ordinarily be residents of the Legislative Assembly Constituency in which enrolment as voters is sought.
People will have to satisfy the electoral registration officers that they are citizens of India to be part of the voters list and they can use documents available with them to support their claims.
The EC voter enrolment exercise is independent of the NRC, though authorities responsible for the two lists are working in sync.
�The EC, with its objective of �no voter to be left behind�, has asked the Chief Electoral Officer of Assam to coordinate closely with the State Coordinator of the NRC to ensure that all eligible persons are included in the electoral roll during the summary revision in 2019. This way a final electoral roll will be published on January 4 , 2019 to be used for the general elections in 2019,� Rawat had said yesterday.
The complete draft of the NRC, published earlier this week, in Assam included 2,89,83,677 people out of a total 3,29,91,384 applicants. The names of around 40.07 lakh applicants did not figure in the document. � PTI
