Congress seeks clarity on voters categorised as absent, shifted or others during SIR; calls for safeguards against exclusion of eligible electors
The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) has questioned the status of 1,23,749 electors categorised as Absent, Shifted or Others during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Nagaland, asking how many are genuinely ineligible and how many could be eligible voters left out of the draft electoral roll.
In a press statement issued on November 10, the NPCC raised concerns over the enumeration figures released by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Nagaland, and rejected the BJP’s dismissal of concerns surrounding the revision exercise as political propaganda.
The Congress questioned the BJP’s defence of SIR following its ‘Loktantra Bachao, Bheed Tantra Hatao’ campaign held in Dimapur on November 7, arguing that the State’s own electoral data warranted greater scrutiny of the enumeration process.
According to figures published by the CEO, Nagaland, the State had 13,57,208 electors before the SIR, of whom 11,99,456, or 88.38%, submitted enumeration forms. The remaining 1,57,752 entries were not covered during the enumeration phase.
Of these, 28,944 were identified as deceased, 1,23,749 were categorised as Absent, Shifted or Others, while 5,059 were identified as duplicate or multiple enrolments.
The draft electoral roll published on September 20 contained 12,06,457 electors, including 7,001 service electors, reflecting a net reduction of 1,50,751 compared with the pre-SIR electorate.
The NPCC maintained that the 1,23,749 electors categorised as Absent, Shifted or Others could not automatically be treated as illegal or ineligible voters, as the category also included people who were not found during enumeration, had shifted residence or had failed to submit their forms within the stipulated period.
“The BJP must answer a straightforward question: How many of these 1,23,749 electors are genuinely ineligible, and how many are eligible citizens who have been left out of the draft roll?” the party asked.
The Congress said it did not oppose the removal of deceased and duplicate entries but maintained that the exercise must not deprive eligible citizens of their democratic right to vote. It called on the Election Commission to ensure that no genuine elector was excluded due to administrative shortcomings or procedural difficulties.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India has directed the election machinery in Nagaland and six other States to provide another opportunity to electors whose enumeration forms were not received and whose names were consequently left out of the draft rolls.
The November 6 directive calls for fresh publicity of the opportunity to seek inclusion, display of booth-wise lists of affected electors and monitoring mechanisms to ensure that eligible voters are not deprived of the chance to register, while preventing duplicate enrolments.
The NPCC said the revision process required transparency, accountability and thorough verification, reiterating that every eligible citizen’s name must be protected in the electoral roll.
