Days after former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Arun Prakash, and his wife received notices from the Election Commission of India (ECI) asking them to submit additional documents in connection with the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Goa, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) of the concerned constituency on Monday issued a “clarification”.
The ERO said the enumeration form submitted by the Admiral “did not contain mandatory particulars relating to the previous SIR”, and since all the fields pertaining to the last SIR were “left blank”, the system categorised the form under the “unmapped category”.
A clarification issued by ERO of Cortalim Assembly Constituency said that the booth-level officer (BLO) of part no. 43 of Cortalim Assembly Constituency collected the enumeration form pertaining to Admiral Arun Prakash.
“It was observed that the said enumeration form did not contain mandatory particulars relating to the previous SIR, including the name of the elector, EPIC number, name of the relative, name and number of the Assembly Constituency, part number and serial number in the electoral roll. In the absence of these essential identification details, the BLO application was unable to establish an automatic linkage between the submitted enumeration form and the existing electoral roll database,” it said.
“The BLO application is designed to automatically map enumeration forms only when the prescribed identification particulars are duly filled in, enabling verification with the existing electoral roll. In cases where enumeration forms remain unmapped, the SIR process mandates further verification through a hearing mechanism. Accordingly, as per the standard, system-driven procedure, a hearing notice was automatically generated and issued to enable verification of the elector’s details and ensure due opportunity for confirmation of eligibility,” the clarification said.
The Admiral, a decorated war veteran and a Vir Chakra awardee, who settled in Goa after retirement, had told The Indian Express on Sunday that he and his wife were asked to appear before ECI officials on two separate dates, and that they would comply with the request. “The language of the notice is quite complicated and difficult to understand,” he said.
The notice served earlier last week said, “Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Electoral Roll is ongoing in your Assembly Constituency. Your duly signed enumeration form has been received. After scrutiny, it has been observed that you have not filled in the details related to you or your relative that could establish you or your relative as a registered elector in the electoral rolls prepared during the previous SIR.”
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Last week, South Goa MP Viriato Fernandes, a retired naval officer and Kargil war veteran, also received a notice from the Election Commission of India (ECI) asking him to submit his documents to prove his “identity in order to retain my name in the electoral roll”.
