NEW DELHI: The office of the Goa chief electoral officer on Thursday said 88 of the 97 voters in the state whose names could not be included in the roll due to an alleged ECINet issue have been added back after their duly filled Form 6 was accepted. However, he also revealed that three of these 97 electors are Portuguese passport holders while six others were electors currently based outside India.“In respect of voters who are currently residing outside India, officials are making efforts to establish and maintain contact with them for necessary action,” the CEO said while sharing the status report on the 97 cases on X.Section 9 of the Constitution disallows dual citizenship. Goans born before 1961 in former Portuguese territories, as well as their kids and grandchildren, can apply for a Portuguese passport based on a citizen card issued by the Portuguese authorities after verifying their birth/descent documents. Portugal recognises dual citizenship; however, since dual citizenship is not allowed in India, anybody who acquires a foreign passport must surrender his Indian passport. As per Sec 9 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, a person’s Indian citizenship automatically ceases upon acquiring foreign citizenship.Thus, three of the Portuguese passport holders in Goa may be classified as non-citizens, making them ineligible to be enrolled as Indian electors, said a source.
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Incidentally, Portuguese passport holders form 3% of the cohort of 97 electors for which the Goa CEO had repeatedly written to the EC after the ERO could not add them back via ERONet, leading the ECs to also raise questions on why access for such changes was ‘centralised’ and not available to the field officers. The issue was further amplified by the opposition parties after The Indian Express reported on the alleged internal notes of the election commissioners in this regard.EC sources on Thursday said the due diligence by the ERO the second time around may have served the purpose of SIR, as it is aimed at eliminating ineligible persons from the voters’ list. Also, the fact that the issue was detected at the ERO level proves that the absolute right to add or delete a voter, based on verification, remains with the field officers, an EC officer told TOI.
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