Ashok Lavasa speaks online at the event
“All those born in India and who have attained 18 years should be on the voters’ list. Because of a logical discrepancy, lavasa also came down on EC for striking off voters.
Lavasa, who addressed the gathering online, said EROs who are the only officials authorised to remove electors were not given access to the system that had been controlled centrally, an act that he termed illegal. In normal course, appeals against decision by EROs can go to the district election officers or chief electoral officer,” he said. Actor and filmmaker Prakash Raj said the way the Centre is trying to save CEC makes it clear that govt benefited from him. The people who were struck off the roll were once included by EC in the voters’ list using its procedures,” Lavasa said. They knew time was short,” he said. But never in history voters were so anxious and so worried whether their names will remain or will be excluded from the list,” Lavasa said. “Discrepancy cannot be a ground for disqualification,” he said.
The priority of EC has turned to weeding out voters who it thinks are ineligible to vote. An agency that was meant to include voters is removing them. “EROs are only authorised officials to remove voters. But they were unable to access ECINET. This amounts to illegality. EC’s two main duties were to prepare a pure electoral roll and conduct polls on time. “EC knew when elections are due in Bengal, yet it went ahead with SIR.
“Revision of rolls happened earlier also. Kolkata: People have been removed from the electoral roll merely on suspicion that they are not citizens and not based on evidence, former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa told a citizen’s convention on SIR on Tuesday.
In a report to the SC, EC has said that 38.3 lakh appeals have been filed with the tribunals. Till date, close to 1.3 lakh appeals have been decided. Of the 38 lakh appeals filed, 22.2 lakh were by voters whose names were excluded while 16.1 lakh were against inclusion.