Maharashtra poll chief seeks more discretion for EROs in ECINet

• Maharashtra chief electoral officer S. Chockalingam asked the Election Commission to change ECINet so electoral registration officers can decide how to handle flagged discrepancies

• A state poll official claimed the request had been accepted, including a proposal to dispense with hearings when documents satisfy the officer

• The Maharashtra Congress sought action against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, claiming the software diluted officers’ statutory powers

Maharashtra chief electoral officer S. Chockalingam has asked the Election Commission to change its ECINet software so electoral registration officers (EROs) can exercise discretion when dealing with discrepancies flagged during the revision of voter rolls, a state poll official said on Tuesday.

The Indian Express reported that Chockalingam made the request in a letter dated 24 September, and the Commission has accepted it, the official told PTI. The proposed changes concern notices generated through the centralised system for issues described as “logical discrepancies”, including mismatches in a voter’s parents’ names or age details.

The state also sought an option for EROs to dispense with a personal hearing when they are satisfied with the documents a voter has submitted, the official said. Electoral officers from states regularly send suggestions to the Commission, he added.

The request comes during Maharashtra’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The deadline for submitting claims and objections has been extended from 30 September to 12 October. According to the figures in the state’s account, enumeration forms for 2.07 crore voters could not be collected or were marked as belonging to voters who were absent, deceased, had shifted or appeared in duplicate entries. Those categories do not, by themselves, establish that every name has been removed from the rolls.

The Maharashtra Congress said the request raised wider questions about who decides voter eligibility. Party spokesperson Atul Londhe argued that EROs hold the statutory authority to assess discrepancies and claimed that the way ECINet operates was limiting their ability to do so.

Londhe demanded action against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and criticised the involvement of senior election officials in the system’s operation. These were Congress claims; the state poll official described the letter as a routine request to improve how officers handle notices.

The dispute comes amid scrutiny of the SIR process following reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on several occasions to decisions concerning electoral rolls. The question for Maharashtra’s ongoing revision is how the accepted ECINet changes will work in practice and whether they give EROs the discretion sought in Chockalingam’s letter.

With IANS inputs