Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have been ordered to conduct proper verification before deleting names from the state electoral roll, Odisha Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) R Sant Gopalan said on Monday.
“We have asked all election monitoring officials to conduct proper verification before deleting names from electoral rolls,” Gopalan told reporters. He said block level officers (BLO), who are not authorized to delete names from electoral rolls, have submitted their reports.
About 980,000 names were shortlisted for deletion by BLOs this year, leading to increased complaints about the process, Gopalan said.
In an April 18 letter to election officials, Chief Electoral Officer and Special Secretary Sushanta Kumar Mishra pointed out that nearly 980,000 names have already been shortlisted for deletion since the voter mapping process began, and asked election officials to conduct thorough verification before deleting voters, especially deceased voters.
Officials said there were complaints about instances where voters were found present despite their names being removed, and instances where booth level officers (BLOs) did not conduct site visits or proper verification before recommending deletion.
Mishra has instructed voter registration officials to ensure that names of deceased voters are deleted only after thorough verification, preferably based on Form 7 applications submitted by family members or close relatives.
Notices must also be sent to the voter’s last known address before any deletion is made.
The CEO’s office also mandated detailed checks in cases involving duplicate or incorrect entries. EROs are directed to check demographically similar entries and issue notices to voters when duplication or questionable matches are suspected.
The revised guidelines require officials to physically verify at least 50% of Form 7 applications received after April 2 by contacting applicants directly.
All complaints of wrongful deletion received via email, helplines or grievance systems must be investigated thoroughly, officials said.
In cases where expungement requests are still being processed, the requests must be retracted through the District Elections Official’s login system. When names are wrongly removed, affected voters must be re-registered immediately.
Environmental Risk Officers will also be required to provide written certification confirming that at least half of the cases have actually been verified and that prescribed procedures were followed prior to deletion. The online system will be reopened for electoral roll updates for affected constituencies only after this certification process is completed.
