Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 17 (IANS) The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Saturday sought urgent intervention by the Election Commission to address what it described as serious confusion and large-scale disruption caused by the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process of electoral rolls in the state, warning that lakhs of genuine voters risk being disenfranchised if corrective steps are not taken immediately.
A KPCC delegation led by Working President P.C. Vishnunath MLA, along with Vice Presidents M. Vincent MLA and Mathew Kuzhalnadan MLA, met Chief Electoral Officer Ratan U. Kelkar and conveyed the party’s concerns in detail.
The Congress leaders alleged that flawed procedures, unscientific ward and booth delimitation, and clerical errors had together created a chaotic situation for voters across Kerala.
The delegation pointed out that ward and booth reorganisation had been carried out without adequate geographical verification, resulting in voters from a single booth being scattered across multiple locations.
This, they said, has caused widespread confusion and inconvenience, especially for elderly voters and those living in rural areas.
The KPCC team also alleged that under the guise of hearings, voters were being subjected to unnecessary hardship.
The Congress leaders demanded that voters should not be summoned for hearings due to clerical or software-related errors.
They also insisted that individuals who had produced valid documents should not be called for hearings simply because their names were absent from the 2002 electoral rolls.
The delegation urged the Election Commission to immediately rectify what it termed “unscientific booth delimitation” to prevent further complications.
Highlighting the scale of the issue, the KPCC team said nearly 18 lakh voters have been excluded from the electoral rolls due to mismatches and discrepancies.
It argued that voters should not be penalised for mistakes arising from faulty software entries or administrative lapses on the part of election authorities.
The delegation further called for uniformity in decisions and procedures related to the SIR process across the state, stressing the need for transparency at every stage.
It also urged the Chief Electoral Officer to closely monitor the conduct of officials involved in the revision exercise to ensure that no political bias was influencing their actions.
Warning that the issue strikes at the core of democratic rights, they said the party would continue to pursue the matter until corrective measures are implemented, asserting that protecting every eligible citizen’s right to vote must remain the Election Commission’s foremost priority.
–IANS
sg/pgh
