CHENNAI: Residents of Varadarajapuram in Tambaram Corporation have flagged continuing issues with the draft electoral roll for the Sriperumbudur Assembly constituency. They say that the way voters are listed makes it difficult to verify, and their earlier grievances were not looked into and redressed.
The issue concerns areas that earlier fell under polling part no 257, which had 1,604 voters and is now renumbered as parts 302 and 303 in the draft roll released on December 19. Residents say the problem is with how names are organised in the voter list.
Voters from many streets and Nagars are still shown under just three old street names - Bhajanai Koil Street, Pillaiyar Koil Street and Munusamy Street.
"These streets existed more than two decades ago. Since then, Varadarajapuram has expanded. New streets and nagars have come up, but the draft roll does not reflect this change," said V Rajasekaran, president, Royappa Nagar-Thiruvalluvar Residents' Welfare Association.
Residents say that this has made it difficult for voters to find their names. Voters from the same street are spread across parts 302 and 303.
In some cases, members of the same household are listed in different parts, even though they live in the same address.
The welfare association had written to the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO), Kundrathur, on November 24, asking that voters be listed street-wise and nagar-wise.
The letter also pointed out that the earlier part no. 257 had more than 1,600 voters, exceeding the Election Commission of India's guideline of around 1,200 voters per polling part, and sought a rational split.
When the draft electoral roll was published on December 19, the association said its earlier request had not been implemented, apart from routine deletions. The same listing issue continues in the renumbered parts.
"Voters should be listed under the streets where they actually live. Only then will it be easy to find and verify names," said Rajasekaran, adding that the current listing also makes it difficult to check whether new names included in the roll belong to the area.
The association has now taken up the issue with the Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu, seeking corrections before the final electoral roll is published.