MARGAO
The Margao unit of the BJP has decided to petition against some of the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) for not acting to delete the names of bogus voters in Margao constituency.
While the BJP delegation comprising party leaders Naveen Raikar and Sharmad Raiturkar tried to raise the issue of BLOs before the District Electoral Officer South Ajit Roy at a meeting with representatives of political parties, the duo was told to file a written petition with the election authorities.
The meeting was represented by Altinho Gomes for the Congress, Durgadas Kamat for the Goa Forward and Naveen Raikar and Sharmad Raiturkar for the BJP.
Naveen told the media after the meeting that the BJP has identified around 800-900 bogus voters which have not been deleted by the authorities to date. He said the bogus voters are bleeding the taxpayers by taking advantage of social welfare schemes with the help of the voting cards.
“They get their names enrolled as ordinary voters with the help of the BLOs and then take advantage of the social welfare schemes, bleeding the Goan taxpayers. This has to stop immediately,” he said.
Suspecting the hand of some BLOs in enrolling bogus voters, Naveen said the BJP will not only call for their suspension but will also lodge a criminal complaint with the Crime Branch to initiate action against the guilty officials.
Meanwhile, Goa Forward representative Durgadas Kamat expressed his satisfaction that the election officers had taken cognizance of the party’s complaint last time that a dead person had applied in Mormugao for the deletion of names.
He said the party has also drawn the attention of the election officials to the fact that BLOs should be roped in from different departments in Mormugao constituency, pointing to the presence of 21 out of 29 BLOs in one constituency from the power department.
Congress representative Altinho Gomes expressed his happiness that the election officials responded to the complaints lodged by the party in Mormugao.
