Shillong, Oct 19: The office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Meghalaya has removed a Booth Level Officer (BLO) after a voter from Nongkrem was mistakenly declared deceased during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
An inquiry into the incident has also been initiated.
The CEO, BDR Tiwari, today described the incident as “shocking and unfortunate” and expressed regret over the error, extending an apology to the affected voter, Ridalin Laloo.
The controversy arose after Laloo discovered that her voter record had allegedly been mapped to a deceased person despite her continuing to reside in the locality. Following the error, election officials restored her name to the electoral roll but issued her a new Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number instead of reinstating the original one.
Laloo has objected to the change and has demanded that her original EPIC number be restored. According to the CEO, the electoral system does not have a mechanism to revert to a previous EPIC number once changes have been processed, making correction of the mistake difficult. Tiwari said he did not anticipate any issues arising from the change in EPIC number for Laloo.
