We have two submissions to make here. If the army has given a timeframe we are confident that a lot of expert appreciation must have gone into working it out including a forward calculation of time and space, in which there is but only ten percent chance of error. And they have also suggested that it would not be too much of a trouble to go door to door, with all the necessary technical equipment, although that might take a bit more time, but only just.

We are inclined to go along with the army's suggestion, which meets the popular expectations of a timely free and fair election, and would hope that the CEC would have the relevant persons go to ground very soon and once and for all determine the exact time it would take for completing the voter list and going for election. We feel too that keeping the six months in mind the CEC could initiate all related and corollary actions to see to the holding of a free and fair election. And since, according to the CEC, the work on the voter list can start by August at the latest, it can be completed by Feb 2008, going by the army's six-month timeframe. They can now perhaps move full throttle ahead keeping February 2008 as the benchmark for the electoral roll.

Thus we suggest that there is a rationale for bringing the election forward instead of waiting till end of 2008. To this end, all reform measures contemplated by the election commission should be finalised through discussions with the political parties and other stakeholders without delay.