Booth-level officers in Delhi have been asked to collect additional documents to verify the citizenship of voters who submitted only Aadhaar cards in response to “no mapping” notices issued during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, The Hindu reported.
In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the exercise but clarified that the Election Commission cannot decide whether a person is an Indian citizen.
In Delhi, electoral registration officers had directed that voters be asked to prove that they were not “Bangladeshi” or “Rohingya” by furnishing additional documents, the newspaper quoted several booth-level officers as saying.
The officers said that some of these voters had already submitted field verification reports and undertakings confirming that they were eligible to vote and had been living at their addresses for years.
Voters who submitted only Aadhaar cards were flagged in the system, the newspaper reported. This was despite electoral registration officers having the authority to mark a voter as eligible for inclusion in the final roll if they were satisfied with the booth-level officer’s field report and undertaking.
An unidentified booth-level officer said that instructions on collecting additional documents had changed repeatedly. Officers had initially been told that they could submit an undertaking confirming a voter’s eligibility if they did not possess the documents prescribed by the…
Source: Scroll.in
