Aizawl: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has approved 52 new polling stations in Mizoram, taking the total to 1,353, as part of the ongoing rationalisation exercise, officials of the state chief electoral officer (CEO) office said on Saturday.Officials said the ECI set June 28 as the deadline to finalise rationalisation. The offline rationalisation process in the state was completed and approved by the ECI.As per ECI guidelines, polling stations are being reworked to ensure no station has more than 1,200 voters and that electors do not have to walk more than 2 km to reach their polling station.“We expect that the online rationalisation of polling stations will be completed by Sunday, the last date for completion of the process as fixed by the ECI,” an official said.Meanwhile, Mizoram has achieved 100% digitisation of enumeration forms under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, in line with ECI directions, officials said.Officials said 46,434 enumeration forms (5.31%) could not be collected for various reasons. Of these, 21,194 electors (45.64%) were found to have died, 14,179 (30.53%) permanently shifted, 2,161 were already enrolled during the SIR, and 8,571 (18.45%) were untraceable.They added that 329 people (0.71%) across the state have opted out of inclusion in the electoral rolls due to religious beliefs, citing fears of being marked with the Biblical “number of the beast” or 666.
ECI set June 28 as the deadline to finalise rationalisation
