The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) held a meeting to discuss the possibility of preparing a common voters’ list for elections to all local bodies, state assemblies and Lok Sabha in a move that ties in with the idea of simultaneous elections in the country.
Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2020
Key-Points
In many states, the voters’ list for the panchayat and municipality elections is different from the one used for Parliament and Assembly elections.
This is because the supervision and conduct of elections in our country are entrusted with two constitutional authorities — the Election Commission (EC) of India and the State Election Commissions (SECs).
Set up in 1950, the EC is charged with the responsibility of conducting polls to the offices of the President and Vice-President of India, and to Parliament, the state assemblies and the legislative councils.
The SECs, on the other hand, supervise municipal and panchayat elections. They are free to prepare their own electoral rolls for local body elections, and this exercise does not have to be coordinated with the EC. Each SEC is governed by a separate state Act.
However, some state laws allow the SEC to borrow and use the EC’s voter’s rolls in toto for the local body elections. Currently, all states, except Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Odisha, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, adopt EC’s rolls for local body polls.