ISLAMABAD, May 6: The Election Commission announced on Monday it had finalised the fresh electoral rolls on the basis of age limit of 21 years, contrary to the announcement by the president that the age limit for the voters in the next general elections would be 18 years.

The EC, in its official announcement, said the objection against the entry in voters lists were to be disposed of by the Revising Authorities till May 2.

It recalled that for the preparation of electoral rolls containing names of persons with the age of 21 years and above, updated electoral rolls were verified by house-to-house enumeration.

The exercise, EC said, was carried out from Jan 1 to Feb 11. Thereafter, it added, the manuscripts of electoral rolls were supplied to Nadra by Feb 11 for printing of preliminary/draft electoral rolls.

It was for the first time, the EC further said, that enumeration forms were also published in the newspapers to enable all those persons, who could not be approached by the enumerators during the field operation of house-to-house enumerations, with a view to make the whole process transparent.

These preliminary electoral rolls were published/displayed as draft electoral rolls on April 5, it went on to say.

The EC recalled: “The entitled voters were requested through an extensive publicity campaign to inspect the electoral rolls and to file claims in the prescribed form if the name of any eligible person was not available in the preliminary electoral rolls.

“The objections could be filed for deletion of names of those persons who were not entitled to be enrolled in any particular electoral area. Similarly, the applications could be filed for correction of any particulars of entries in the electoral rolls.

“The claims/objections/applications were to be filed with the Revising Authorities who were appointed from amongst the Judicial Officers. The claims/ objections were to be filed from 5th April 2002 to 25th April, 2002.

“The claims/objections/applications (for correction) were to be disposed of by the Revising Authorities simultaneously till 2nd May, 2002. The number of claims/objections/applications (for correction) filed was as under:

“Islamabad, 298, 0, 140; Punjab, 28,540, 6,584, 3,551; Sindh, 11,938, 13,092, 8,272; Balochistan, 5,755, 5,860, 1,258; NWFP, 8,966, 857, 1,285; Fata, 12,127, 228, 1,160; Total, 67,624, 26,621, 15,666.”