Margao: Congress workers protested outside the chief electoral officer’s (CEO) office on Thursday, alleging that the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was conducted illegally. A delegation led by state Congress president Girish Chodankar later met CEO Sanjay Goel, demanding that the exercise be scrapped.The party also gave the CEO a 10-day ultimatum to act on its demand and gave a memorandum highlighting alleged irregularities in the SIR.Chodankar said the party informed the CEO that a fraud had been committed on voters in the name of SIR. “The powers of the state CEO have been usurped by chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar,” he said. “We told him that the entire process is fraudulent and illegal.”The party president said the delegation specifically cited the legal provisions allegedly violated. “The Election Commission has violated Sections 21 and 22 of the representation of the people act by arbitrarily deleting names of voters from the last electoral roll without issuing notices to them,” he said.He added that the delegation told the CEO that the ECI cannot override the statutory provisions of various acts.Chodankar said the party had brought to the CEO’s notice that the names of 1.39 lakh voters, nearly 12% of the electorate, had been struck off illegally. The party said it will intensify its agitation if the CEO fails to respond.
