JAGATSINGHPUR: The draft electoral roll published as part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise has thrown up shocking anomalies across the district, especially in Ohala area of Jagatsinghpur town, with voters alleging multiple errors in data entry.
A voter from Ohala in ward no 7 under Jagatsinghpur municipality alleged that while her age was correctly recorded as 18 years, her father was shown as only 19 years old. In another case, the age of a man and his grandson was recorded as same.
Another voter Sanjukta Singh of Ohala alleged that her father’s name has been recorded as Rahmat Khan in the latest draft roll. The 2002 electoral roll had correctly recorded her father’s name as Rajkishore Singh.
Local booth level officer (BLO) Nirmala Manjari Rout admitted that the error had occurred during the SIR verification. She said a notice was issued asking Sanjukta to appear in the office for correction. Rout said the error may have occurred during computerised data entry and would be rectified.
Similarly, several voters in Biridi block claimed that their booth numbers had been changed without their knowledge, forcing them to apply for corrections. Residents alleged that these were not isolated incidents and several errors had surfaced during the SIR verification across different parts of the district.
Jagatsinghpur municipality executive officer (EO) Sandip Singh said the complaint regarding incorrect entry of the name of the woman’s father would be examined. “Necessary steps will be taken to verify the details of the voter from Ohala village whose father’s name was wrongly recorded. Since the verification process is still underway, the error will be corrected,” he said.
Official figures show that following the house-to-house verification conducted by the BLOs, 65,026 voters, accounting for 6.74 per cent of the district’s electorate, have been identified for deletion from the draft electoral roll. The proposed deletions include 22,585 deceased voters, 28,315 voters who have permanently shifted elsewhere, 4,117 duplicate entries, 9,095 voters found absent during verification, and 926 names proposed for deletion on other grounds.