BJP MLA Kirit Somaiyya, former MP Jayvantiben Mehta and others met Sankaran at the latter's office in Mantralaya this afternoon and submitted a memorandum to him. Sankran, however, in clear terms told the delegation that he was not in a position to accept some of the demands because of ``certain provisions in the law.''

``We demanded that the State Election Commission should make special arrangements to register voters in new cooperative housing societies and areas in suburban Mumbai as hundreds of families have migrated from the city. It is important because during last Lok Sabha elections held in February 1998, names of thousands of voters had disappeared from the roll. Most of them were in possession of the voter's identity card. We requested him to send anofficer to the residential area where more than 25 voters are to be registered. But he flatly refused the demand saying the law provides that a voter has to personally submit the necessary application to the authorities and no officer would visit any residential area,'' Somaiyya said while talking to scribes.

The delegation also demanded that an applicant must be allowed to use photocopies of a blank application form instead of making it mandatory for everyone to obtain a form personally from the government outlets. Somaiyya said Sankaran had accepted the suggestion and the citizens will be able to use photocopy of a blank form to apply to the Election Commission.

The delegation requested Sankaran that the provision making it mandatory for an applicant to produce four documentary proofs of domicile be abolished. Somaiyya said Sankaran accepted that only one documentary proof of domicile was enough and the Election Commission would not harass the applicants.

Somaiyya alleged that only 7,500 applicationshave been submitted so far during the drive because of various complications in the entire procedure. He said the clause making it compulsory for an applicant to get deleted his/her name from the old voting area office before applying to the new area office should be removed.