1.87 Lakh unmapped voters told to prove citizenship to stay on rolls
PANAJI
The Chief Electoral Office (CEO) has identified approximately one lakh voters for exclusion from the draft electoral roll due to being marked as absent, shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD).
As the deadline to submit and digitise the enumeration forms under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) ended on Thursday, the CEO has also zeroed in on 1.87 lakh unmapped voters, who will now have to prove their citizenship, to continue to be voters in Goa.
CEO Sanjay Goel said that of the total 11.85 lakh enumeration forms distributed, 10.85 lakh forms have been received and digitised. He said during the process, names of the one lakh ASDD voters would be deleted from the draft electoral roll, which will be published on December 16.
He said that their names would be displayed on the CEO’s website, on the office notice boards of DROs and in major public institutions.
He said these were voters who were not found at their residences despite multiple visits by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) during the verification exercise. In many cases, voters were not found at their registered addresses, had permanently shifted, were reported deceased, or confirmed that they were enrolled elsewhere.
A significant development during the SIR is that around 15 per cent of voters, that is 1.85 lakh voters, whose names appear in the current electoral rolls, could not be matched with the 2002 electoral roll. This means neither their names nor their parents’ names could be identified in the 2002 registers, Goel explained.
While these names will appear in the draft roll, affected voters must submit documents establishing that their parents were Indian citizens in 2002, he said. They will receive notices from ARO specifying dates, times, and venues for hearings before electoral registration officers (ERO), who will determine whether their names should be retained.
