Imphal, Aug 30 (IANS): A woman government employee can now register her husband as service elector in the voters' list, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Manipur Rajesh Agrawal said here on Tuesday.

The CEO said that earlier, only the wife of a male service personnel was allowed to register as service elector along with her husband.

He said that to make gender neutral provision for Service and Special Electors, the word "wife" has been substituted by the word "spouse" in relevant sections of Representation of People Act, 1950 and Representation of People Act, 1951.

Accordingly, the husband of a female service personnel can now register as service elector along with his wife.

Agrawal said that, as per the recommendation of the Election Commission, the Ministry of Law and Justice has amended the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

After holding a meeting with the national and recognised political parties, the election official said that from now onwards there would be four qualifying dates -- January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1 as eligibility for new voters to register in electoral rolls as against the earlier single qualifying date of 1st January only.

Now, 17 plus year old youngsters can apply in advance to include their names enrolled in voters' list and not necessarily have to await the pre-requisite criterion of attaining age of 18 years on January 1 of a year.

The CEO also said that the Election Commission has launched a nationwide programme on August 1 for inclusion of Aadhaar number in the electoral records aiming establishing the identity of electors and authentication of entries in electoral roll which will eventually help in identifying registration of name of the same person in more than one constituency or more than once in the same constituency.

The Election Commission has asked its state authorities across the country to undertake a special summary revision with respect to January 1, 2023 as qualifying date.