Odisha’s chief electoral officer (CEO) R Sant Gopalan on Monday said electoral registration officers (EROs) have been ordered to conduct proper verification before deletion of names from the state’s electoral roll. (Facebook/OdishaCEO) “We have asked all the EROs to undertake proper verification before deleting the names from the electoral rolls,” Gopalan told reporters. He said block-level officers (BLO), who are not authorised to delete names from electoral rolls, have submitted their reports. Gopalan said that around 980,000 names were shortlisted for deletion by the BLOs this year, leading to a surge in complaints about the process. In an April 18 letter to the EROs, additional chief electoral officer-cum-special secretary Sushanta Kumar Mishra noted that nearly 980,000 names had already been shortlisted for deletion since the commencement of the elector mapping process and asked EROs to carry out a thorough verification before deleting voters, particularly deceased voters. Officials said there were complaints about cases in which voters were found to be present despite their names having been removed, and instances in which Booth Level Officers (BLOs) …