The Chief Election Commissioner’s descrip tion of Goa’s Special Inten sive Revision (SIR) of elec toral rolls as the “best” in the country is now under sharp scrutiny, after an in vestigation revealed how 97 voters, despite being found eligible for inclusion by election officials, were left out of the final roll. The 97 Goans’ ordeal did not end when Elec toral Registration Officers (EROs) heard their cases and found them eligible. Their names still failed to make it back into the final roll — despite the Goa Chief Electoral Officer writing to the Election Commission eight times in seven days seeking a mechanism to re verse the deletions. The Indian Express investigation has trans formed what could have been a Goa-specific ad ministrative failure into a national controversy over the centralisation of elec toral-roll management and its implications for eligible voters.
The 97 voters had initial ly been flagged for ‘logical discrepancies’. After the Supreme Court directed that such voters be given an opportunity to submit documents and be heard, Goa’s Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) examined the cases and found the 97 eligible for inclusion. But the ECINet software used for the revision did not pro vide the required rollback facility, according to the investigation. The final roll was published on February 21 without their names. The Goa episode has assumed national signif icance because it dove tails with wider concerns over the centralisation of electoral-roll systems and disagreements within the three-member Election Commission over aspects of its functioning. In Goa, the consequenc es are not merely elector al. The Indian Express re ported that several State welfare schemes use the electoral roll to establish eligibility, including the Goa Mediclaim Scheme, which covers treatments ranging from dialysis and chemo therapy to transplants. The controversy has trig gered a political backlash across the country.
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Congress MP Shashi Tharoor described the reported ex clusion as ‘extremely serious’, saying it involved depriva tion of constitutional rights as well as access to essential humanitarian benefits. He demanded an apology from the Election Commission and questioned whether its response had adequately addressed the specific issues raised by the investigation. “Resignation is a minimal demand; rescinding this disas trous software and undoing the harm it has caused is now indispensable,” Tharoor said. He also demanded documentary answers on the Goa cases, including why the 97 voters remained excluded af ter their eligibility had been established and who author ised appeals concerning voters whose inclusion had been restored. South Goa MP Capt Viriato Fernandes accused the Elec tion Commission of alleged irregularities in the electoral rolls, describing the issue as a “mega chori” of votes and calling for action against Chief Election Commissioner Gya nesh Kumar.
Fernandes alleged that voter records had been system atically altered and claimed that the 97 names in Goa, which were reportedly due to be added, were cancelled through amendments to Form 6 without the applicants’ knowledge. He further claimed that around 1.3 lakh names had been deleted in Goa, describing the 97 cases as only “the tip of the iceberg”. “Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is fit to wear a lotus symbol on his outfits like the BJP leaders,” Fernandes said, alleging that the functioning of the Elec tion Commission had raised serious questions over the electoral process. The Congress MP demanded Kumar’s arrest and called for the West Bengal election results to be scrapped and fresh elections held, describing the alleged voter deletions as an assault on the electoral process and democracy. Goa’s Opposition parties have seized on the episode as evidence of deeper problems with the SIR exercise.
GFP president Vijai Sardesai demanded that the deletions be reviewed and eligible voters restored, pointing to the scale of deletions in Goa and arguing that even relatively small numbers can assume significance in closely fought Assem bly constituencies. “Clearly, the BJP leadership is confident that it will re turn to power in the 2027 Assembly elections, and the deletion of voters is part of the process leading up to the polls,” Sardesai said. “All the deleted names must be restored, except in cases where the deletion is justified, such as the death of a voter or other legally established grounds. There must also be greater clarity from the authorities on the process of dele tion and restoration,” he demanded. AAP Goa president Valmiki Naik alleged that centralisa tion had undermined the authority of local EROs. “The authority of the EROs to re-add voters has been un dermined by centralising the process in Delhi.
This is prob ably just the tip of the iceberg. Those who don’t vote for the BJP will have their votes deleted,” Naik said. “I reiterate the demand made by AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal that CEC Gyanesh Kumar should be arrest ed immediately and prosecuted for treason,” he added. GPCC spokesman Savio Coutinho alleged that the SIR process had been manipulated to disenfranchise Opposi tion voters. “We had been consistently pointing out the fraudulent manipulation of electoral rolls during the SIR process. The BJP had totally hijacked the SIR in Goa,” Coutinho said. “Even if one considers 50% as genuine, it amounts to 1,750 votes per constituency, which is normally around the winning margin we often see in Assembly elections. My single-point demand would be withdrawal of the SIR final rolls and initiation of an intensive summary revision based on the 2025 electoral rolls,” he added. GPCC working president Sunil Kawthankar called the 97-voter episode “a well-planned exercise”. “I demand the immediate rollback of the SIR exercise held in Goa. The deletion of 97 names in Goa was not a technical glitch but a well-planned exercise to win elec tions.
The BJP mapped the voters and deleted the names of those who were against it. This shows that the BJP cannot face Congress but is using the Election Commission and the SIR to win elections,” Kawthankar said. Those allegations remain contested political claims. The more immediate and documented issue, however, is the gap between decisions taken by election officials on the ground and the inability of the electoral system to give ef fect to those decisions before publication of the final roll.
The Indian Express reported that Goa officials repeated ly sought a rollback facility between February 11 and 17, while a Deputy Election Commissioner subsequently said the IT system could not block corrective action directed by the Supreme Court. SIR Citizens’ Monitor Goa has raised similar concerns, alleging that voters were excluded from draft or final rolls and questioning the legal and procedural basis of aspects of the revision. The group has also flagged the absence of an effective rollback facility in the electoral-roll software.
