The Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued a notice to Capt Viriato Fernandes, the sitting Lok Sabha MP from South Goa and a decorated Kargil War veteran, as part of a special electoral roll revision. The notice requires him to appear with documents to prove his identity to retain his name in the voter list.
Notice Details and Official Explanation
The notice was generated under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll. It asks Fernandes to appear before the designated officer on January 27, 2026, between 9 am and 12 pm, with original documents prescribed by the ECI. This development comes roughly a year after he won the South Goa parliamentary seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Goa's Chief Electoral Officer, Sanjay Goel, clarified that the notice was a result of a procedural lapse. He stated that in his enumeration form, the MP had not mentioned the assembly constituency and the part number of the 2002 electoral roll, which are crucial for mapping voters in the system.
"The Booth Level Officer (BLO) should have scrutinised this and sought the details from him. It was a lapse on the part of the BLO," Goel said. He confirmed that a show-cause notice would be issued to the concerned BLO to investigate whether attempts were made to collect the missing information. Goel assured that Fernandes's name would not be deleted from the final roll once the details are provided.
MP's Reaction and Broader Concerns
In his response, Capt Viriato Fernandes linked the notice to the intense scrutiny all candidates faced during the 2024 polls. He expressed concern over the implications for ordinary citizens if a sitting MP could be subjected to such a process.
"If a member of Parliament can be subjected to this scrutiny, wonder about the state of a common man," Fernandes remarked. He stated this confirmed concerns raised by opposition parties and civil society groups that the SIR could be used to delete names of legitimate voters and hinder their participation in democracy.
The MP, who served in the Indian Navy for 26 years, emphasized his long-standing voter credentials, stating he has voted since 1989 and made special trips to Goa from his military postings just to cast his ballot.
The Path Forward
The ECI notice explicitly states that the scrutiny found Fernandes had not filled details that could establish him or a relative as a registered elector in the rolls from the previous SIR. Due to "no match/likely incorrect match," he was summoned to present documents.
While officials attribute the issue to an administrative error by a booth-level officer, the incident has sparked a debate on the implementation of voter roll revisions. The focus now is on the MP complying with the notice to rectify the record, with assurances from the election machinery that his voting rights will remain intact.
