Ex-Admiral Prakash submits eligibility documents; set to be included in Goa’s final roll

New Delhi: Former Indian Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash (retired) on Monday reportedly submitted all the necessary documents linking him to the electoral roll from last special intensive revision (SIR), paving the way for early resolution of the matter relating to the system-driven notice issued to him after all the fields in his enumeration form (EF) pertaining to linkage with the last SIR roll, were left blank."The documents were collected by the competent field officer on Monday and the matter will be settled, perhaps by Tuesday, making the retired Admiral and his wife eligible for inclusion in the final electoral roll of Cortalim assembly constituency (AC) in Goa," an officer aware of the proceedings told TOI on Monday. Similarly, a hearing due on Jan 16 on the notice served to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, an elector in Bolpur AC of West Bengal, after the age of his mother, with whom he was mapped in the EF filled and submitted by his relative, was reportedly found to be less than Sen's, is expected to sort out the anomaly.

A hearing will be held at Sen's registered address at Shanti Niketan, and the relative will have the opportunity to correctly map Sen to the SIR from the last roll, said an officer. In a clarification issued in Admiral Prakash's case on Monday, the Cortalim ERO explained that his EF was categorised as “unmapped” after it was observed that the said EF did not contain the mandatory particulars relating to the previous SIR, including the name of the elector, EPIC number, name of the relative, name and number of the AC, part number, and serial number in the electoral roll.

"In the absence of these essential identification details, the BLO application was unable to establish an automatic linkage between the submitted EF and the existing electoral roll database,” the ERO said.Underlining that the BLO application is designed to automatically map EFs only when the prescribed identification particulars are duly filled in, the Cortalim ERO said the blank fields in Prakash’s EF triggered the system to categorise his EF as “unmapped", mandating an auto-generated notice for further verification through a hearing mechanism."As per the standard, system-driven procedure, a hearing notice was automatically generated and issued to enable verification of the elector's details and ensure due opportunity for confirmation of eligibility," shared the ERO. The officer said any elector can notice blank fields in the EF and cross-check with the BLO, before signing the form. Unlike SIR Phase 1, no eligibility documents are to be submitted with EF in Phase 2; however, the fields regarding linkage to last SIR must mandatorily be filled to avoid a notice after the draft roll is published.