Dehradun, Aug 5 (PTI) Notices issued to around 19.3 lakh voters during Uttarakhand’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls have prompted many residents to visit grievance redressal centres to correct discrepancies in names, ages and family details, while the Congress has alleged irregularities in the exercise.
At the Raipur grievance redressal centre here, several voters said they had received notices over spelling mistakes in names, incorrect age entries and inconsistencies in family details across official documents.
Vishuka Sherpa said her family received a notice because of variations in the spelling of her father’s name in different records, despite his name figuring in the electoral roll.
Another voter, Alisha, said notices were being issued even for minor discrepancies.
“Notices have been issued even for a discrepancy in a single letter of a name. Consequently, additional documents have to be submitted,” she said.
Bhupendra Singh Bisht said the electoral roll showed only a 15-year age gap between him and his mother. He alleged that despite repeated visits to the grievance centre, the error had not been corrected.
Officials at the centre said one of the biggest challenges was the inability of many people to produce the required documents, as some had lost them in floods, fires or other accidents.
“The biggest challenge is that many people have lost their documents. As a result, they are unable to submit the necessary paperwork,” a sector magistrate posted at the centre said.
Officials said spelling mismatches accounted for a large number of cases, with variations arising because names appeared in Hindi in some documents and English in others, or due to missing surnames and differences in the spelling of fathers’ or husbands’ names.
Additional Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Kumar Jogdande said the draft electoral roll published on July 14 contained 71.33 lakh voters.
He said notices had been issued to about 19.3 lakh voters over various discrepancies detected during the verification process, while another 5.5 lakh notices related to mapping issues had also been served.
According to Jogdande, notices have reached around 77 per cent of the voters concerned and hearings are being held across all districts from August 1 to September 3.
He said Special Assistant Electoral Registration Officers had been deployed in assembly constituencies where a large number of notices had been issued, with each officer assigned cases relating to four or five polling booths.
Recipients of notices can appear before the authorities with supporting documents, following which Booth Level Officers will upload their reports and Electoral Registration Officers will take a final decision based on the available evidence, he said.
Jogdande added that other valid records may also be considered if the prescribed documents are unavailable.
Uttarakhand Congress president Ganesh Godiyal alleged serious flaws in the SIR process, claiming that in some cases, people shown as proposers for deletion of voters’ names could not be traced at their registered addresses.
“The person who applied as a proposer to have someone’s vote deleted appears in the records. However, when attempts are made to locate them, they cannot be found,” Godiyal alleged.
He said the party had informed the Election Commission about such instances reported from several assembly constituencies in the plains.
The Congress, however, has not made public the names of any such proposers or furnished evidence that could be independently verified.
Jogdande did not respond when asked about the Congress’s allegations.
The Congress has also set up a war room at its state headquarters here to scrutinise electoral rolls, monitor objections to deletion of names and assist voters who have received notices.
The Election Commission has maintained that recipients of notices are being given an opportunity to attend hearings and submit documents, and that final decisions will be taken on the basis of the evidence available. PTI DHM APL
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