The Election Commission today inked an MoU with a Bangalore-based non-political civil society organisation, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, for an project titled BEST to ensure greater citizen participation in the electoral process.

Chief Election Commissioner Naveen Chawla and Infosys mentor and adviser to the organisation Narayana Murthy were present at the event along with other top EC officials.

Bangalore Electoral System Transformation (BEST), to be initiated on a pilot basis in Shanthi Nagar constituency here, aims for a time-bound, transparent and citizen-friendly process of voter registration and 100 per cent accuracy in the electoral roll by eliminating errors of omissions, commissions and spelling mistakes.

Janaagraha will take up voter awareness programme, while the Chief Electoral Officer will provide latest information on the electoral roll process to the citizens through the organisation's website and enable the process of voter registration application expeditiously.

Chawla said Bangalore had a problem which was different from other cities.

"It has the fastest moving population", with those holding hi-tech jobs shifting jobs and addresses frequently and hoped that such collaborative efforts will help in updating voters list.

In the last general election, Chawla said out of the 740 million voters, 582 million cards had been distributed.

Efforts were being made to reach the 740 million mark by December next year.

Speaking about Karnataka, he said it lagged behind states like Sikkim, Nagaland, West Bengal and Tripura when it came to EPIC card coverage. However, he said, the coverage had improved in recent months and was hopeful it would inch to the 100 per cent mark.

He also called for political representatives to appoint a agent who could help Booth level Officers in detecting missing names and duplication of names.

He also expressed confidence on EC holding "free and fair polls" in Bihar.

The EC had instructed all CEOs, that "no case that was election related could be withdrawn without its consent and till it met judicial finality".

He refused to comment on the illegal mining case saying it was sub-judice.

Murthy underlined the need for a good electoral process which ensured that the electoral data base of all voters were updated and mechanism that was voter friendly to register names and vote at the booths.