Guwahati, Jan 22 (PTI) Leader of the opposition in Assam Assembly Debabrata Saikia on Thursday wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner expressing concern over alleged wrongful deletion and objection of voters’ names during the summary and special revision of electoral rolls in his Nazira constituency.
In the letter, the Congress leader claimed that several permanent residents of his constituency found their names excluded from the electoral rolls.
Saikia alleged that local BJP leaders were involved in the removal of the names of electors who were previously enrolled in the electoral rolls and that the affected individuals were indigenously settled residents who have been living in these areas since the pre-independence period.
In several instances, the village headman (gaon pradhan) has certified in writing that the electors concerned are permanent residents and continue to reside in the villages, but despite such official certification, their names have either been removed or questioned, he claimed.
During discussions with booth-level officers (BLOs), it was reported that they had no clear information regarding the reasons for such removals.
”This raises serious concerns about transparency, accountability, and adherence to due process in the electoral roll revision process, particularly in the Nazira assembly constituency”, the Congress leader said.
It is significant that many of the affected voters belong to the Muslim community, along with other indigenous residents who have lived in the area for generations, and this pattern heightens the gravity of the matter with the possibility of discriminatory practices in the revision of electoral rolls, he stated in the letter.
Another matter of concern is that there are reported death cases where the elector was confirmed to be alive during verification, Saikia claimed.
”Such incidents highlight grave lapses in the verification mechanism and suggest the possibility of misinformation, negligence, or serious procedural irregularities at the field level”, he alleged.
Saikia urged the CEC to ensure a comprehensive post-verification review in assembly constituencies, including Nazira, to identify instances of false, misleading, or incorrect reporting, including falsely recorded “death” cases, and to fix accountability wherever lapses, negligence, misconduct, or procedural irregularities are found.
He said the results of the completed verification exercise should be carefully examined to ensure that no particular community or social groups have been disproportionately, selectively, or indirectly targeted during the electoral roll revision process.
The Congress leader called for institutional supervision and monitoring of BLOs and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) to be further strengthened so that all future revision exercises strictly comply with constitutional guarantees, statutory safeguards, and the principles of fairness, transparency, and impartiality.
He also called for immediate remedial directions to be issued so that no name is deleted from the electoral rolls without strict compliance with the principles of natural justice, including proper notice, a meaningful opportunity of hearing, and reasoned orders passed by the competent authority, and that all electors whose names have been wrongly marked as “dead”, “absent”, or “shifted” be restored suo motu, pending final determination. PTI DG DG MNB
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