TEAM HERALD
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MARGAO: Census figures may have put the number of females as less than their male counterparts with Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar expressing concern over the dwindling sex ratio (1,000 males: 932 females) in the State.
But the Election Commission of India has come across a different figure. It may seem strange, but EC has discovered that females outnumber men in many constituencies and at the booth level. This has spurred it to conduct a special drive to find out the actual ground reality taking into account the census figures.
Joint Chief Electoral Officer, N S Navti says the special drive is to find out how there are 40 more women voters per thousand on the electoral roll when the census figures speaks otherwise.
One reason could be, Navti says, is the fact that women continue to retain their names on the electoral rolls at their mother’s place, even after shifting their place of residence.
In a rare exercise, booth-level officers have fanned out door-to-door across the constituencies to find out whether the phenomenon is due to the shifting of females to constituencies after marriage without deleting the names from the original place of residence.
Says Salcete Mamlatdar, Triveni Velip, in-charge of Fatorda Assembly constituency: “In Fatorda alone, BLOs have reported that around 532 females might have shifted their place of residence without deleting their names from the electoral roll of their original place of residence. We have issued notices to all the 532 women to show cause why their names should not be deleted from the electoral roll on grounds of having shifted or changed their residence”.
Hearing on the notices is fixed for March 8 in the office of the Salcete Mamlatdar before initiating further action.
Assistant Electoral Registration Officer for Cuncolim and Benaulim constituencies, Uday Prabhudesai said his office has started the process of ascertaining the number of women whose names are registered on the electoral rolls at two places.
Prabhudesai pointed out that BLOs enrolled for election work in Cuncolim have reported that 445 women may have shifted their place of residence.
Similarly, he said that 383 women voters in Benaulim have come under the scanner of the BLOs and notices have been issued to these voters to show cause why their names should not be deleted for shifting or changing the place of residence.
Says Navti: “One possible reason for the presence of more women voters than men could be that women continue to retain their names on the electoral rolls at the mother’s place after their marriage.”
The objective behind the ongoing exercise is to delete duplicate women voters, he added.
He said the entire exercise is scheduled to end by March 30 and is expected to give an insight into the male-female voter ratio on the electoral roll.
