Ranchi: Election officials have apologised to 55 voters who were wrongly included in the ASDD (absent, shifted, dead or duplicate) list during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, despite submitting enumeration forms.Chief electoral officer K Ravi Kumar said the affected voters were from Ranchi, Dhanbad, Jamshedpur and other districts. Their names were erroneously categorised as ASDD during preparation of the draft roll, but the mistakes came to light during verification and the claims and objections process.“The mistakes surfaced during verification and the claims and objections process, after which their status was corrected and election officials expressed regret,” Kumar said.The cases have raised questions over the quality of field verification during the SIR exercise. A senior election official, however, said the errors were “well within the acceptable limit”, pointing out that the machinery had processed 2.65 crore enumeration forms. Electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant EROs apologised to the affected electors, the official said.Officials rejected allegations by political parties and activists that eligible voters had been deleted on a large scale. They termed the charge “ill-founded”, saying no party or activist had published a list of genuine electors wrongly included in the ASDD list.Under the SIR process, booth level officers were required to conduct house-to-house enumeration and verify electors before the draft roll was prepared. The lapses occurred during draft roll preparation.Kumar said the election machinery detected and acknowledged the mistakes during the revision. To ensure transparency and concurrent scrutiny, the ASDD list was displayed at polling stations and uploaded on the websites of the CEO and district election officers. Hard copies were given to booth level agent-2 representatives of recognised political parties, while soft copies were also shared with them.The matter now is whether the 55 electors were wrongly listed due to negligence or deliberate action by BLOs, supervisors or other officials. SIR related lapses have already prompted action elsewhere. In Ranchi, more than 150 BLOs reportedly received show-cause notices over complaints related to handling enumeration forms.“SIR is a transparent and participative process, with concurrent audit by all stakeholders, including political parties,” Kumar said.
