Mumbai, Aug 17 (IANS) A Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) delegation led by MLA Rohit Pawar and state unit chief Shashikant Shinde on Monday submitted a representation to Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S. Chockalingam, urging critical reforms in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists across the state.
The delegation flagged operational, technical and administrative discrepancies, including incomplete address details, physical verification hurdles, data mapping errors, duplicate entries, improper family mapping and wrong address assignments.
Pawar told reporters that while some issues received satisfactory responses, many were linked to the Central Election Commission.
He said excessive pressure on Booth Level Officers (BLOs) was leading to lapses, noting that “to date, the names of 1.08 crore people have been removed from the voter list; this matter was also discussed.”
NCP (SP) demanded strict door‑to‑door verification by BLOs, avoiding shortcut “Table Surveys.” Before classifying any voter as shifted, permanently shifted or untraceable, officials must make at least two home visits and mandatory phone/SMS contact attempts.
The party proposed mandatory GPS/Geo‑tagging, timestamps, and photographic evidence for every verification visit; strict limits on interference by Booth Level Agents (BLA‑2); and regular digital audits of BLO logins, devices, IP addresses, and SIR app usage. Real-time additions, deletions, and corrections should be published on an open district-wise dashboard, with proposed voter deletion lists made public for appeals and hearings within three months.
Further, the delegation urged adoption of OTP‑based verification, AI tools, facial recognition, fuzzy matching algorithms and integration with the National Data Integration Model to reduce duplicate entries. It also sought district‑level monitoring committees, special review mechanisms for wrong-mapping cases, SOP training for BLOs, and appointment of additional staff.
The representation demanded strict administrative and disciplinary action against officers guilty of negligence, skipped verifications, or incorrect entries.
Pawar emphasised that the representation aimed to provide constructive recommendations to improve accuracy and public trust in the electoral system, not to create distrust.
–IANS
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