The Ponda bye-election on April 9 will be the first electoral exercise in Goa with the new electoral rolls published in mid-February by the Election Commission of India after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) it conducted.
Many expect this exercise of cleaning up the rolls to have a significant impact on the arithmetic of the Ponda bye-election given that the constituency has undergone a net reduction of its electorate of 4,230 voters.
The rolls published and notified after SIR in February has downsized Ponda's total electorate from 32,157 to 27,927 and analysts say this could alter strategies and potentially benefit one or the other parties, though the exact impact remains uncertain.
New voters who became eligible on attaining the age of 18 during the process have been added and the rolls have been cleaned up of dead voters, those registered in multiple constituencies or States, and voters who may have opted for Portuguese citizenship.
It will unarguably make the contest more unpredictable for the contesting parties and candidates and success will hinge not just on broad narratives but on how effectively voter mobilisation is handled on election day.
