Strike off those who are no longer Indian citizens:Election Commission of India

PANAJI: The Election Commission of India on Tuesday directed the chief electoral officer (CEO), Goa, to delete the names of those individuals who have surrendered their Indian citizenship and acquired foreign nationality.

Deputy election commissioner

Umesh Sinha

, who is reviewing poll preparedness ahead of the upcoming assembly election, told TOI, “The names of whoever have surrendered Indian nationality will be deleted from the electoral role.”

Sinha, who was on a one-day visit to Goa along with election commission director Nikhil Kumar and election commission secretary

Sumit Mukherjee

, held a meeting with officials of the CEO, Goa, the district magistrate, superintendent of police (SP) and others.

During the meet, South Goa collector

Swapnil Naik

, in his presentation, said around 26,000 names had already been deleted as these people had acquired foreign nationality, while around 17,000 names were yet to be deleted.

“The election commission is satisfied with the preliminary preparedness done by CEO, Goa,” Sinha said before adding that the state has to prepare a monitoring plan for all its activities and send weekly reports to the commission.

When asked whether election dates were discussed during the meeting, Sinha said, “We will discuss the matter later when the chief election commissioner comes to the state.”

The election commission also asked the CEO, Goa, to have booth awareness groups at every polling station. Booth-level officers have been asked to go door-to-door to verify names and also to take applications from new voters.

Sinha also directed the Goa police to identify vulnerable polling stations and deploy paramilitary forces there. In the 2012 election, 35 paramilitary companies had been deployed in the state. The commission also directed police to map all polling stations.

Sinha said a summary revision of electoral rolls would commence from September 15 and any related information would be given to the people of the state via radio, media, TV and print media.

During the meeting, Sinha also reviewed the procurement of electronic voting machines (EVMs), education programme for voters, coverage of the newly-eligible voters, correction of errors in rolls and other forms of facilitation for voters.
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