The Election Commission of India (ECI) published the final electoral roll for Goa on Saturday after the completion of the nearly four-month-long Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, reflecting a contraction of 2.5% compared to the draft roll and 10.8% compared to the pre-SIR roll. This makes Goa the only state so far to see a decline in the number of electors compared to the draft roll. All other nine states/UTs where SIR has been completed since last year have seen the number of electors increase between the draft and final roll.
Goa’s rolls had 1,185,034 electors on October 27 last year, before the SIR exercise began. This count decreased to 1,084,992 in the draft roll published after the enumeration phase of the exercise on December 16, a decline of 8.4%. The final roll has 1,057,666 electors, a further 2.5% contraction compared to the draft roll.
How did Goa’s count of electors decrease between the draft roll and the final roll? The short answer is that the state got fewer applications for inclusion than the discrepancies and other problems it found on the rolls.
A press release from the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) shows this in detail. Among the 1,084,992 electors on the draft roll, only 902,589 were mapped to the last SIR’s roll and 182,403 were unmapped. Even among the 902,589, however, 58,923 electors were listed as logical discrepancies, such as a mismatch with father’s name (41,116 electors), very low age difference with parents and grandparents (10,629 electors), very large age difference with parents (3,830 electors), and more than six children (3,348 electors). On the other hand, 24,949 forms were filed during the claims and objections period for inclusion or shifting of residence.
Among the cases of 182,403 unmapped electors and 58,923 logical discrepancies among the mapped in the draft roll, only 35,780 were marked for deletion during the claims and objections phase. Among the forms filed for inclusion or shifting of residence, 12,166 led to inclusion after the draft roll and 3,812 led to deletions. This led to a total 39,592 deletions and 12,166 additions, which translates to a net deletion of 27,426 between the draft and final roll.
“If you compare with the draft roll and the final roll we have published today, we have a total deletion of 39,592 and addition of 12,166 making it a net deletion of 27,426 voters. And if you add the ASDD voters also, which were not in the draft roll itself, the total deletion vis a vis the roll we had when we started the SIR process we have a net deletion of 1,27,468 voters which makes it 10.75% of the electoral roll which we had on 27th October,” the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Goel said.
The net deletions include a total of 428 individuals who had acquired Portuguese passports, but whose names were still on the electoral rolls, Goel said at a press conference on Saturday.
A bulk of the deletions have taken place in the constituencies surrounding the port town of Vasco da Gama, with the constituency of Vasco da Gama itself registering the highest number of net deletions in the state at 11,657.
The second highest was the Cortalim constituency also in the Mormugao taluka with 9,389 deletions, while neighbouring Dabolim constituency registered 5,489 deletions, the third highest in the state.
In North Goa, the Taleigao constituency, in the vicinity of the state capital Panaji registered 4,947 deletions while Panaji itself registered 4,274 deletions.
Of the 1.06 million voters in the final roll, 511,436 are male, 546,121 are female, and nine belong to the third gender. The percentage of 18-19 year olds (first time voters) is 0.89% in the final roll compared to 0.5% in the draft roll.
The gender ratio of the state’s final roll is 1068 compared to 1073 in the draft roll. “Anybody aggrieved with the final roll, the appeal lies within 15 days with the DEO, which is the collector and if aggrieved by the decision of the collector, the decision lies with the CEO within 30 days. Parallelly one can also file Form 6 afresh, with declaration with the supporting documents and that will also be considered,” the CEO said.