Goa: 500 voter cards found dumped in drain; CEC orders inquiry
Joint Chief Electoral Officer said the first look at the pictures indicates that these are old Electoral Photo Identity Cards.
Panaji: The Chief Electoral Office in Goa has ordered an inquiry into pictures that surfaced on the social media showing hundreds of EPIC cards dumped in a roadside drain in Margao, 40 kms from Panaji.
Goa Forward (GF) party too met officials at the Chief Electoral office producing pictures of the voter cards which were found dumped in the poll-bound state.
"I have asked District Collector to submit a report within 48 hours about those pictures," Joint Chief Electoral Officer Narayan Navati told PTI on Wednesday.
Navati said a thorough probe will reveal the truth behind the cards but the first look at the pictures indicates that these are old Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) cards.
"They may have been dumped in the dustbin during shifting of mamlatdar office in Margao town. But I will be able to comment properly only after the inquiry," he said.
The Collectorate complex including mamlatdar office which was earlier located in the heart of Margao city has shifted to the outskirts in a new complex.
Goa Forward (GF) Party had raised an alarm when nearly 500 voting cards were found in the roadside drain on the way to Old Railway station in Margao town.
The party suspected foul play behind the act and has demanded a probe into the entire episode.
"We demand a thorough inquiry in the matter and action on the officers handling the process of electoral roll. We have been getting complaints from a certain section of a community from across the state that their names are deleted from the electoral rolls which is done mechanically at the behest of BJP workers," party's spokesman Durgadas Kamat alleged.
He accused BJP workers of coaxing election commission officials to delete names from voting list.
"BJP is so desperate that they are trying all this dirty tricks so that the names of those voters who are against BJP are deleted from the rolls and they would not be able to vote in the upcoming assembly elections," he said.
Goa Forward will petition the Election Commission at Delhi in this matter by October 19, Kamat said.