Mapping underway to identify bogus and dead voters; BLOs to start door-to-door checks; parties flag fears of wrongful deletions
PANAJI
Ahead of the conduct of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll, the Chief Electoral Office, CEO Goa will have to verify within three months the voters whose names did not figure in the State’s 2002 SIR list. The CEO has already commenced mapping current electors with records from their last SIR – conducted in 2002.
As per the Election Commission of India (ECI) data, Goa had a total of 9.27 lakh voters during the 2002 State legislative assembly election. The number went up to 11.85 lakh eligible voters on the final electoral roll published in January, this year. The previous SIRs will serve as the reference point for the ongoing revision.
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) IAS Sanjay Goel on Tuesday chaired a crucial all-party meeting at his office on SIR before the full-fledged and ground-level exercise starts from November 4. Apart from the CEO, all-party meetings were held at the district level, where they were chaired by the North and South Goa district magistrates, respectively, who are also the District Electoral Officers. Representatives from the ruling BJP, MGP and opposition Congress, AAP and GFP attended the meeting.
During the meeting, the Opposition informed the CEO that they should not allow a single legal voter’s name to be deleted from the electoral list and no bogus names would be added and if any violation by Booth Level Officers (BLO) is observed then will seek ECI intervention. The political parties have decided to remain vigilant to ensure the eligible voters are part of the electoral roll.
A senior officer explained that the pan-India exercise is aimed at weeding out discrepancies and verifying voters’ credentials. “We are nearing completion the mapping of current electors with records from their last 2002 SIR. It will serve as a baseline,” the officer said adding ‘total 2.60 lakh voters have been added…the number would be more than that as many are dead voters’.
Speaking to media persons, the CEO said that for individuals already registered on the 2002 list, the process is simpler as they will only need to submit an enumeration form along with a copy of the 2002 voter list. Those whose names do not appear in the 2002 list but whose parents are listed will need to provide additional documentation, including identity proof and an extract of the 2002 voter list for their parents.
“The last SIR was in 2002..for last 23 years no SIR has happened …we will distribute the enumeration forms to all 11.85 lakh voters…BLOs will undertake mapping of the 2002 SIR list and the current voter list,” he said explaining in case where not a single parent name figures in 2002 list, the citizen will have to provide documents as required to prove its citizenship.
The SIR will be conducted in three phases. In the first phase, starting from November 4 the BLOs will reach every doorstep with the enumeration forms and collect the details of the voters concerned. At the end of the first phase – December 4, the draft voters’ list in the State will be announced on December 9.
Then, in the second stage from December 9 to January 8, 2026 any political party or individual voter will be able to register their complaints on the draft list, which will be addressed by the ECI.
Then, in the third and final stage which is from January 9-January 31, the EROs will address the complaints received from individual political parties or individual voters, following which the final voters’ list will be published on February 7.
Goel said that political parties being important stakeholders, we have requested them to help the election machinery to complete the exercise successfully and in a time bound manner.
Earlier, post meeting, BJP’s Pundalik Raut Desai said that BLOs will have to verify whether the names existed before 2002 and will have to map them with the existing electoral roll. As many as 1,725 BLOs and 669 political party BLAs are roped in to undertake the exercise.
“There are around 11.85 lakh voters of which around 60k to 70k are dead voters. Their names are not deleted in the absence of death certificates,” he said, explaining that people, whose names would be missing in the draft roll, will be issued notice by the BLOs to prove their existence.
While BJP ruled out bogus voters list in Goa, Congress president Amit Patkar raised concern with regards to bogus voters and GFP vice president Durgadas Kamat expressed apprehension with regards to targeted community deletion.
The Opposition also brought to the notice of the CEO the fact that there are several communities like that of vanarmare, mundkars, tenants, who might lack documents to prove their eligibility.
