PANAJI: Around 30,000 Goans have surrendered their Indian passports in the last decade to acquire foreign nationality, including of Portugal, Goa’s former colonial ruler.Now, their parents are facing scrutiny from EC under SIR of the electoral rolls, as they too have registered their birth in Portugal.If a child is born after the Liberation of Goa on Dec 19, 1961, and wants Portuguese nationality, parents, if born before 1961, must register birth and marriage in Portugal to allow their children to register their birth there and get a Portuguese passport.Since 2014, according to data submitted to EC for scrutiny under SIR, 29,831 Goans have surrendered their Indian passports.”We will verify all those who acquired Portuguese and other foreign passports, and whose names still feature on electoral rolls. After that, we will seek advice from the law department on those who registered their birth in Portugal and did not obtain a Portuguese passport, and take a call,” chief electoral officer Sanjay Goel told TOI. Goel said they got data from passport office and home department on those who acquired foreign nationalities.”Over 8,000 names of those who surrendered their Indian passports and acquired foreign nationality, including Portuguese, in last five years were submitted to EC,” Regional Passport Office Goa head Nijo Varghese said. Several of those who have registered their births in Portugal, including politicians, police personnel and bureaucrats, also obtained a Portuguese passport or ID card, which were seen as tickets to working in Europe.In 2014, Pramod Sawant, currently Goa CM, had urged Union govt to grant amnesty to Goans to cancel Portuguese identity cards, so they could retain Indian citizenship. “The sole intention of these people was to secure a chance of getting their children Portuguese passports and benefits that come with it,” he said.Goel said such names would be verified and they would be issued suo motu notices. He said if they did not fill in enumeration forms and their names did not feature in the draft rolls published Dec 16, they would not be issued notice.
