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Organisation : Chief Electoral Officer Gujarat (ceo.gujarat.gov.in)
Announcement : Schedule for General Election to Legislative Assembly of Gujarat 2017
Applicable State : Gujarat
Website : https://ceo.gujarat.gov.in/
Election Schedule 2017 : https://www.electionin.in/uploads/5176-Schedule.pdf

Election Schedule :

The term of the Legislative Assembly of Gujarat is normally due to expire on 22.01.2018.

Related :
Gujarat State Legislative Assembly Bye-Election on 23rd April 2019 : www.electionin.in/6862.html

ECI Lok Sabha & State Legislative Assemblies General Election 2019 : www.electionin.in/6747.html

By virtue of its powers, duties and functions under Article 324 read with Article 172(1) of the Constitution of India and Section 15 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the Commission is required to hold general election to constitute the new Legislative Assembly in the State of Gujarat before expiry of its present term.

Assembly Constituencies :
The total number of Assembly Constituencies in the State of Gujarat and seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, as determined by the Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 2008, are as under: –

State : Gujarat
Total No. of ACs : 182
Reserved for SCs : 13
Reserved for STs : 27

Electoral Rolls :
The electoral rolls of all the existing Assembly Constituencies in the State of Gujarat have been revised, with reference to 01.01.2017 as the qualifying date. The dates of publication of the Final Rolls was 27.09.2017 and the details of the final publication are available on the ECI website.

As per the final roll, the number of electors in the State is as follows:
State : Gujarat
Total No. of Electors as per Draft Rolls published on 01/07/2017 w.r.t. 01/01/2017 as qualifying date : 42718198 (4.27 Crore)
Total No. of Electors as per Final Roll published on 25/09/2017 : 43337492 (4.33 Crore) (Increase of 1.44%)

Improvement in the health of the electoral rolls:
The Commission firmly believes that pure and updated electoral rolls are the foundation of free, fair and credible election and intensive and sustained focus is laid on improving their quality and fidelity.

The Commission, after visiting the poll bound State, had directed the State election machinery to ensure a smooth, effective, accessible and time-bound completion of Special Summary Revision of Electoral Rolls with 01.01.2017 as the qualifying date, so as to ensure that all eligible un-enrolled electors in the State are duly registered. Special efforts were made to identify the critical gaps in the electoral rolls and targeted SVEEP activities were carried out to address them.

The Commission has been constantly endeavouring to improve the fidelity of electoral rolls by taking focused efforts for maximization of registration of eligible electors and removing the impurities in the rolls. In 2015, the Commission has launched a nationwide comprehensive programme, namely, NERPAP with an objective of bringing an error free and authenticated electoral roll.

A similar programme called as NERP, 2016 was organized with the objectives of improvements of health of electoral roll and standardization of sections, polling station and part boundaries.

This year, in tune with the theme of ‘No’ voters to be left behind’ the Commission utilized the period of continuous updation, for maximization of enrolment of young electors particularly 18-19 age group and removal of entries of registered dead voters.

Special Initiatives taken in Gujarat:
Second Special Summary Revision 2017 was organized in Gujarat from 1st July, 2017 to 25th September, 2017 during which 10.46 Lac no. of voters name have been added in the electoral rolls .

Special drive to enroll left out voters has been organized from 9th – 25th October, 2017 in which BLOs are visiting house of every family in the area and will collect the forms from the left out voters.

Photo Electoral Rolls :
Photo Electoral Rolls will be used during this General Election and photo percentage in Photo Electoral Rolls of this State is 99.99%.

Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) :
Identification of the voters at the polling booth at the time of poll shall be mandatory. Electors who have been provided with EPIC shall be identified through EPIC.

All the residual electors are advised to obtain their Elector Photo Identity Cards from the Electoral Registration Officers of their Assembly Constituencies, urgently.

In order to ensure that no voter is deprived of his/her franchise, if his/her name figures in the Electoral Rolls, separate instructions will be issued to allow additional documents for identification of voters, if needed. Adhaar Card has also been included as an additional document for establishing the identity of voters at the Polling Stations.

Photo Voter Slips :
To facilitate the voters to know where he/she is enrolled as a voter at a particular polling station and what is his/her serial number in the Electoral roll, the Commission has directed that official voter slip bearing the Photo of the elector (wherever present in the roll) will be distributed at least 7 days before the date of poll to all enrolled voters by the District Election Officer and a very close and rigorous monitoring of the distribution process shall be done by the DEO and General Observer concerned.

The size, design and format of the Photo Voter Slip has also been substantially improved to enhance its utility and effectiveness in voter identification, awareness and guidance by increasing the size of the image, providing additional information along with polling station Nazri Naksha on the reverse of the slip and improvement in the quality of printing.

It has also been directed that the said voter slip should be in the languages in which electoral roll is published for that Assembly Constituency.

The Commission has laid a special emphasis on the systematic, efficient and timely distribution of the Photo Voter Slips through the Booth Level Officers (BLOs), who are under strict instructions to hand over the voter slip to the elector concerned only and not to any other person.

The BLOs shall also maintain a Pre-Printed Register of Voters and take the signatures/thumb impression of person to whom the Photo Voter Slip is delivered.