Salcete Portuguese passport holders under radar of poll officials

HERALD REPORTER

MARGAO: Portuguese passport holders, beware. Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have fanned out to various corners of Salcete to strike down the names of voters, who are now Portuguese passport holders, from the electoral rolls.
Three months after the Foreigners branch came out with a detailed list of hundreds of Portuguese passport holders across the state, election officials right down at the booth level are tracking down the names as part of the exercise to delete the names.
Says Salcete Mamlatdar Paresh Faldessai: “Booth level Officers have been entrusted with the job of deletion of names of Portuguese passport holders from the electoral list. The exercise is already underway at the booth level”.
With the Election Commission appointing one Assistant Electoral Returning Officer for each of the eight assembly constituencies in Salcete, the exercise is being supervised by these AEROs as per the directions of the Election Commission.
Incidentally, information revealed that many a Portuguese passport holders have voluntarily made their presence felt before the AEROs for deletion of names from the electoral list.
“My office itself has seen many Portuguese passport holders applying for deletion of names from the electoral list. Apart from this, the Booth Level Officers are carrying out the exercise at the booth level”, Faldessai added.
Electoral Officer, N S Navti says the Election Commission has initiated the exercise after receiving a list of names of people who have acquired Portuguese passports. “No sooner, the Electoral Office receives a report from the police department, the same is forwarded to the Assistant Electoral Returning Officers, who in turn marks the same to the Booth Level Officers for action”, Navti said.
Saying that a Portuguese passport holder ceases to be an Indian citizen after acquiring the passport of the foreign country, Navti said only citizens of India are entitled to enroll their names on the electoral list and to cast vote.
Sources in the know that the Booth Level Officers are conducting inquiries into the nationality status of grass root level politicians.

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