Genuine voter can’t lose their franchise : LoP Yuri Alemao

Goa Khabar : Leader of Opposition Yuri Alemao on Thursday stated that a genuine voter can’t lose their franchise simply because they were not at home when the BLO visited. There should be transparency in SIR process.

He said that door-to-door process of SIR conducted within a short window can’t become the sole test of voter existence.

He said that fear is not imaginary, it is administrative. The fear and anxiety among voters is not political imagination. It is the direct result of unclear rules, hurried timelines, and arbitrary ground-level practices during the SIR.

“When voters see their names missing from the Draft Roll without any prior mandatory notice, trust in the electoral system is shaken. Mass deletion based on non-collection of forms is procedurally flawed,” Alemao said.

He said that over 1,00,042 voters have been marked for deletion mainly because enumeration forms were not collected.

“Non-collection of a form cannot legally mean that the voter has shifted, the voter is dead, the voter is duplicate, or the voter is ineligible. This approach equates absence with disqualification, which is neither fair nor lawful,” he said.

He said that the Goa’s reality has been ignored as students are studying outside and many Goans are working abroad.