MARGAO: TMC leader Churchill Alemao, along with panchas of Carmona, Cavelossim, and Seraulim on Saturday strongly objected to the draft delimitation list and urged to rectify the mistake immediately.
Addressing the media at his Varca office, he suggested taking into consideration the geographical boundaries, besides the local bodies.
“The way the draft delimitation list has been prepared is totally wrong, and it seems that there are deliberate attempts to shift the voters without any reasoning. The authorities should not be biased while exercising the delimitation process”, said Churchill.
He doubted that somebody is engaged in doing the manipulations.
“The delimitation is one of the important exercises and hence should be done in the proper way by taking into consideration the ground reality. One cannot draft such a type of procedure by sitting in the offices, and without the knowledge of reality”, said Churchill.
He said he will be meeting the District Collector in this regard on Monday.
While Sandra Fernandes, Carmona deputy sarpanch said the draft delimitation list pertaining to the Wards two and three is shocking.
“Authorities have just shifted some houses from one ward to another and that too without taking into consideration the geographical boundaries. We have already filed objections before the Mamlatdar, and are waiting to rectify the same”, she said.
Denis Dias, Cavelossim panch besides few other panchas of Seraulim alleged that deliberate attempts have been made by the authorities while drafting the delimitation list.
SEC defends delimitation process
PANJIM: Amidst allegation from the opposition parties that the panchayat ward delimitation process is a farce and done in hurried manner, the State Election Commission (SEC) on Saturday said that wards are constituted considering the geographical contiguity and natural boundaries and number of voters.
Also, granting more time to the citizens to submit their suggestions to draft delimitation proposal, SEC has said that public can submit their views to the District Collector till March 14, who will then undertake necessary rectification and submit it to the Commission.
The political parties including Congress and Goa Forward Party (GFP) had termed the entire delimitation process as farce and done in hurried manner. Citing manipulation, the opposition parties had demanded that the process be kept on hold.
A senior SEC official explained that the village panchayat wards are constituted considering the geographical contiguity and natural boundaries and number of voters.
He said that a distance of two kilometers between polling booth and ward is also considered while undertaking delimitation.
The official also said that the SEC considered the part and section of the Goa Legislative Assembly Roll published on January 5 and supplement published on January 28 while preparing the draft wards.
In order to complete the delimitation task in error free and logical manner the Commission for the first time had rolled out the customised web based software, wherein each of the voters along with its house number is placed in his respective ward.
Official said that even before the citizens could come up with complaints; the SEC had observed several glitches in the delimitation process, especially with regards to house members and the directions were already issued to the Mamletdars to undertake rectification.
“We have identified such cases, where members from same family, living in same house, were registered as voters in two different wards. This happened because of the errors made by the voters, while registering for Electoral roll. They selected wrong sections,” official said adding that they have also brought it to the notice of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).
“Assembly constituencies being large, such errors are not visible,” official said.
Meanwhile, SEC has allowed citizens to submit their suggestions for corrections to the draft plan till March 14 before the district collector. “The comments or complaints received till March 4 will be taken up first wherein the complainant would be called for hearing before making necessary corrections,” official said adding after March 14, the draft will be sent to the government for their comments too.
