SIR drive: Maha Cong seeks two months' extension for voter list objections; cites server glitches, staff shortage

Mumbai: Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) President, Harshwardhan Sapkal, on Tuesday requested state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), S. Chockalingam, to extend the deadline for submitting claims and objections to the draft electoral roll by two months.

Denouncing the current October 12 deadline set under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive as "grossly inadequate," the Congress leadership warned that millions of citizens risk disenfranchisement due to severe administrative and technical bottlenecks.

In an official letter addressed to CEO Chockalingam, Sapkal highlighted that an MPCC delegation had previously met election authorities on September 22 to outline the operational challenges on the ground.

However, the Election Commission (EC) granted an extension of merely 12 days, which Sapkal labeled insufficient, given the massive volume of pending revisions.

Citing figures from the state’s electoral database, Sapkal pointed out that out of 1.54 crore voters flagged on the Absentee, Shifted, and Dead/Duplicate Voters (ASDDO) list, along with 40 lakh youth eligible for new registration, a meager 3,90,000 citizens have managed to submit Form 6 for voter registration.

He further noted that despite errors in the newly formatted Form 6 being brought to the Election Commission's attention, revised forms have not been printed, leaving citizens unable to access error-free application copies.

The MPCC chief outlined several major impediments disrupting the registration drive across Maharashtra. "Frequent server downtime, combined with non-linking of Aadhaar and mobile numbers, has severely paralysed online submissions. Discrepancies between Marathi and English transliterations of voter names are creating further roadblocks," he said.

He further stated that Booth Level Officers (BLOs)—a significant portion of whom are schoolteachers—are currently tied up with conducting mid-term school examinations alongside festive duties during Navratri. Serving notices house-to-house while collecting verification documents has stretched the staff beyond capacity, raising serious concerns over their availability to process fresh applications.

Pointing to critical flaws in the EC's duplication software, Sapkal revealed that a list containing over 25,000 duplicate voter entries in a single Lok Sabha constituency was recently submitted directly to the Nagpur District Collector.

To ensure a transparent, inclusive, and error-free electoral roll, the state Congress chief urged the Election Commission to immediately extend the deadline for claims and objections by two months beyond October 12 to provide adequate time for citizens and field staff, publish daily constituency-wise data detailing the exact number of Form 6, 7, and 8 applications received, following the transparent reporting model used in Delhi and conduct thorough re-verifications across all constituencies to purge bogus and duplicate entries that continue to persist in the draft rolls.

"To ensure that voter registration is conducted thoroughly and no eligible citizen is left out, a two-month extension is mandatory," Sapkal stated, urging the CEO to act swiftly in the interest of fair elections.

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