M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Nov 17: The topics of the health parameters checking and obtaining the commission’s approval for the final publication of the special summary electoral revision were discussed in the press conference of Palamu district election officer/deputy commissioner Anjaneyulu Dodde today.
The DC asked the people of Palamu to avail of November 19 and 20 special campaign dates for any electoral-related issues grievances or complaints like addition, deletion, shifting etc.
The month-long photo electoral rolls beginning from November 9 to December 8 will end up with the final publication of the electoral rolls on 5.1.2023.
Meanwhile, a senior officer at the press conference gave an altogether novel interpretation of the health parameters messing this with ‘healthy parameters’ not realising that health and healthy have different connotations like hospital and hospitality.
Health parameters matter in any electoral process as persons having worse health abstain from any of the electioneering especially queuing up in the line of the voters to cast votes. It affects the percentage of voting. Pictures often appear when fragile voters are taken down to the polling booth in baskets or laps more for photoshoots than for anything else.
C L Brown and others have done a public health review in the context of health and voting and have on record mentioned that health matters most in the voting and to increase the voting intervention for health is desirable.
The second crucial issue raised in this press conference was regarding the ‘prevalent gap between Gender Ratio and Electoral Population Ratio’.
As per the statistics made available, the gender ratio as per census is 909 while the draft roll gender ratio is 908. On the other hand, the electoral population ratio census is 61.57 while the draft roll electoral population ratio is 55.20.
Thus there is a 6.37 target electoral population ratio and this special summary electoral revision aims at reducing the gap between the gender ratio and electoral population ratio.
This correspondent raised this issue to which the DC responded that these health parameters as mentioned in his 5-page note lays stress on more and more inclusion of the eligibles to the electoral rolls.
