Daltonganj: Linking married women voters in Palamu with their parental families in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh has emerged as a major challenge for officials conducting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.Many women who moved to Palamu after marriage are approaching SIR camps with photocopies of electoral rolls from their parental homes and asking officials to map them in Jharkhand.Kundan Kumar, electoral registration officer (ERO) for Bishrampur assembly constituency and Palamu additional collector, said this had become a common refrain among such women.“Many women tell us, ‘I have brought a page of the electoral roll from my parental home in Bihar or UP. Map me here in Palamu. Otherwise, I do not care whether my name figures on the electoral roll here,’” Kumar said.“Some women have only a photocopy showing their names on the electoral roll during the 2003 SIR in Bihar or UP and no other documents to establish the required linkages,” he added.“Our personnel are performing two tasks simultaneously. First, they have to calm the women, who often arrive upset over the verification process. Second, they must explain the importance of the SIR exercise,” Kumar said.He acknowledged that the process was time-consuming but stressed that the verification could not be left incomplete.Officials said SIR teams were conducting extensive searches and matching records to link married women living in Palamu with their parental families, most of whom reside in Bihar and UP.Sources said teams were using the EPIC numbers of the women’s parents to conduct digital searches and establish the required linkages.Among those awaiting verification is Daltonganj resident Nitu Srivastava, whose father lives in Sasaram, Bihar. She is married to Ajay Srivastava, principal of a private school.Sources at the SIR camp at Brahmin High School in Daltonganj said a spelling mismatch in her father’s name had complicated the verification.“We have already spent two full days at the camp for the mapping exercise, but without success. We do not know how many more days it will take before Nitu is removed from the ‘no-mapping’ category in the electoral roll,” Ajay said.
