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SIR, VOTE CHORI BANDH KOR
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SIR, VOTE CHORI BANDH KOR

Uncategorized December 5, 2025 , by

The wide discrepancies in historical data on electors given to the BLOs, the ruthless drive of Goa’s chief election officer (CEO) to mindlessly disenfranchise lakhs of citizens and an intimidatingly stringent documentation process may throw up the most erroneous electoral roll ever

By Praveena Sharma

“It looks like the election commission(er of India) is at war with the citizens of Goa.” That is how the former state election commissioner Prabhakar Timble describes the ongoing exercise of special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. He said the central election commission seems convinced that voters are cheating them, that they should catch the cheaters.
“The citizen is here to cheat and we (Election Commission of India or ECI) are there to catch them,” he sums up succinctly the approach being taken by the ECI for the revision of the elector roll in 12 States, where SIR is underway.
This has sent citizens of Goa in disarray – waiting for the booth-level officer (BLO) to arrive with enumeration forms (EF) at their house, then scrambling to fill it, mapping it to 2002 elector roll and finally mumbling a little prayer for their names to be included in the draft roll to be published on December 16.
The above process may sound simple but it is far from it. That is what former councillor of Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) Patricia Pinto found out when no BLO came to her residence with any EF even after two weeks of SIR being launched. The exercise kicked off on November 4.
On further enquiry, Pinto discovered the entire Campal ward, which comes under the jurisdiction of the CCP, had been left out.
“Then I made a short video saying no BLO has come (to Campal) and that I’m a bit worried because nobody in Campal had received (enumeration) forms,” she said.
Next day, a few official – a BLO, a mamlatdar, a collector, and some others – came to her house to resolve the issue. The BLO informed her that the address on the list given to him by the ECI was wrong. Her details with the BLO mentioned her address on MG Road.
“Now, how will they find Patricia Pinto on MG Road? You tell me,” said an exasperated Pinto.
If she had not bothered to find out why no BLO had delivered EFs to her and others in Campal, an entire ward would have been wiped off the electoral roll for no fault of theirs.
Further, Pinto found the name mentioned against an address in Campal was of some “Patel”; “he found someone by the name of Patel (living in Campal). I said there’s nobody by that name living in Campal”.
These discrepancies in elector details that Pinto bumped into show that if a BLOs were to follow the ECI’s database for SIR, it could throw up an extremely erroneous elector roll, which could result in names of genuine voters deleted and fake voters added.
It’s a fear being expressed by across every State where SIR is on. Critic believe it could not only reshape the electoral roll but even alter its composition. Recently, the chief electoral office (CEO) Sanjay Goel shared close to 90,000 electors were identified as absent, dead, shifted or duplicate (ADSD) and details of 2.2 lakh electors could not be mapped to the 2002 electoral roll.
Many feel these figures are getting inflated because there is no sincere effort being made by the ECI to trace electors to enfranchise them. They believe the attitude of the election office is more to disenfranchise voters.
Timble, who worked in the State election office during the previous intensive revision in 2002, pointed out one major difference between Goa’s previous SIR and this time round – in 2025-26 – was that earlier the focus was on enfranchisement and now it is on disenfranchisement.
“If an elector was not available at his house, his name was not dropped. A notice would be sent to him. There was abundant care taken to see no citizen was denied the voting right, whether he was a local or migrant,” said the former election officer.
He said at the same time, ECI worked diligently to remove dead, duplicate and fake voters from the list.
“Earlier, the proof (of ID and citizenship) need not be beyond doubt. Now, the proof has to be beyond doubt. The scale of deletion that is happening has never happened before,” Timble said.
According to him, even the homeless, whose address is on the “footpath” or next to “municipal garden” has suffrage.
“My address can be a footpath or next to the municipal garden. How do you reach such people? I may be homeless, and may not live in a concrete structure but I have the right to vote” he emphasised.
Timble saw identification of 90,000 electors as ADSD as a “ruthless”; “They cannot delete such large number of voters. I don’t know whether it can happen. This election commissioner (CEO Sanjay Goel) has been ruthless. He has kept targets of disenfranchisement. It should not happen. They (ECI) should know their role is to provide right to vote for every person”.
Elvis Gomes, former bureaucrat and a politician, said as per his estimate, in the enumeration phase – when EF is filled up and digitised – the election office may not be able to get details of close to 30% of the electors. The SIR is being conducted with a voter list of 11.85 lakh electors that existed as of October 27.
He said the exercise is ill-planned and was intimidating to electors, who lacked awareness on many aspects of SIR. Gomes complained about the sweeping powers given to the BLOs and the Mamlatdars, which could leave rooms manipulation of the rolls.
“The BLOs, who are grade 5 employees, have been given the powers of a collector in this whole exercise (SIR),” said Gomes.
The draft electoral roll will be published on December 16 and the final electoral roll will be out on February 11, next year. Once the draft roll is out, electors whose name are not on the list will be sent a notice and called for a hearing (see the process in the box).

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