Amid the ongoing row over the functioning of the Election Commission, Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has written to the poll panel seeking four changes in the ECINet software in the notice phase of the SIR.
The Maharashtra CEO has demanded changes in the software that would give EROs more options while processing SIR notices. The law assigns responsibility for the electoral roll to the Electoral Registration Officer, one for each Assembly seat. But the software used by the poll panel reportedly curtails that role and is heavily centralised, giving control to the DG (IT) of the poll panel.
Read | Rahul Gandhi Flags 727 Voter Exclusions In Delhi. What Poll Body Said On September 26, after a meeting of the full Commission, the Commission issued a statement that partially addressed the Maharashtra requests, giving EROs the discretion to exempt people flagged for logical discrepancies from personal hearings. As reported by The Indian Express , Sandhu wrote on August 14 that CEOs, DEOs and EROs, the statutory authorities for the voters’ list, were reporting they could not perform their duties, with their powers “curtailed by centralised control of ERONet at DG(IT) level.
It also said “various upgradations of the portal have already been made based on the inputs from State CEOs in the past few months,” and that “in case any further flexibility is required by the field officers, that will be made operational. “It is strange,” he said, “that all the responsibilities regarding Electoral Roll lie on EROs, DEOs and CEOs as per law, but the access control has been centralised by DG(IT).”
