Portuguese passport holders’ families may face increased scrutiny during SIR in state

Panaji: Around 30,000 Goans surrendered their Indian passports in the last 1 decade to acquire foreign nationality, including Portuguese. This may lead to their parents facing scrutiny over their voting rights from the Election Commission of India (ECI) under special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, as they too registered their birth in Portugal. If a child is born after the Liberation of Goa on Dec 19, 1961, and wants to obtain Portuguese nationality, the parents of those children who were born before 1961 must register their birth and marriage to allow their children to register their birth to acquire a Portuguese passport. Since 2014, 29,831 Goans surrendered their Indian passports, and the data was submitted to the ECI for scrutiny under SIR. “First, we will verify those who acquired Portuguese and other foreign passports, and whose names still feature on the electoral rolls. After that, we will seek advice from the law department on those who registered their birth in Portugal and did not obtain a Portuguese passport, and take a call,” chief electoral officer (CEO) Sanjay Goel told TOI. He said they received data from the passport office and home department on those who acquired foreign nationalities.The EC launched a SIR of the electoral roll in the state to clear the electoral rolls ahead of the assembly elections, which will be held next year.“Over 8,000 names of those who surrendered their Indian passports and acquired foreign nationality, including Portuguese, in the last 5 years were submitted to the Election Commission of India,” Regional Passport Office Goa head Nijo Varghese said.Goa debated the dual citizenship issue, as several of those who registered their births in Portugal, including politicians, police personnel, and bureaucrats, also obtained a Portuguese passport or ID card, which were seen as tickets to working in Europe.In 2014, chief minister Pramod Sawant urged Union govt to grant amnesty to Goans to cancel their Portuguese identity cards, so they could retain their Indian citizenship.In his letter to the ministry of home affairs (MHA), Sawant had said, “Grant an amnesty to Goans for cancellation of assento de nascimento, cartao de cidadao (the Portuguese identity card), to thereby retain their Indian citizenship”.Sawant had said more than 40,000 Goans registered their births in Lisbon. “The sole intention of these people was to secure a chance of getting their children Portuguese passports and the benefits that come with it,” he said.“The EROs will verify whether these names still feature on the rolls and then issue them suo motu notices,” Goel said. He said that if these persons did not fill in the enumeration forms and their names did not feature in the draft rolls published on Dec 16, they will not be issued notice.On Tuesday, EROs and assistant EROs began conducting hearings for the 1,82,400 persons who were not mapped on the electoral rolls prepared during the 2002 SIR.Unmapped electors whose names are on the draft electoral roll published on Dec 16 will have to attend the hearing along with original documents to retain their name in the final electoral roll, which is to be published on Feb 14.