New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) has directed that two electoral registration officers (EROs) in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit assembly constituency be suspended over alleged irregularities in the electoral roll.The EC on Saturday (October 31) directed in a letter to the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh that EROs Mayank Goswami and Hemant Chaudhary be placed under immediate suspension. Their chargesheets must be submitted to the EC for scrutiny and they cannot be reinstated without the Commission’s prior approval, it stated.The poll authority also directed that section 198 (public servant disobeying the law with intent to cause injury) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) be added to the existing FIR against the two officers as well as against Anil Kumar, a voter registration centre computer operator. Their cases must be pursued rigorously in court to their logical conclusion, the poll body said.On October 22 the EC had ordered that an FIR be lodged against Goswami, Chaudhary and Kumar after the irregularities, which pertaining to thousands of names in the Pilibhit constituency, came to light. They were also removed from their administrative posts and attached to the district headquarters.At that time district magistrate Alok Kumar said that the FIR invoked section 32 of the 1950 Representation of the People Act, which deals with breaches of official duty in connection with the preparation of electoral rolls.Yesterday, Uttar Pradesh CEO Navdeep Rinwa directed district election officers to deactivate the ECINET portal IDs of computer assistants at voter registration centres across the state.District election officers (DEOs) were also asked to obtain confirmation from the respective EROs after the login IDs of the computer assistants working under them are deactivated.A probe into alleged irregularities in 10,470 voter entries in the assembly constituency found that a computer assistant had allegedly entered 13,779 Form-8 applications for changes in voter details between May 31 and August 29, of which 10,470 were approved and 3,309 rejected. But no application forms or supporting documents related to these entries were found in the office.The inquiry came about after opposition parties – the Congress and Samajwadi Party – alleged large-scale electoral roll manipulation in the Pilibhit constituency.Saturday’s letter also directed that the Pilibhit DEO’s report scrutinising the electoral rolls of all four constituencies under their jurisdiction be sent to the EC in a week’s time. It also ordered that the action-taken report concerning the computer operator concerned as well as five assistant EROs of the Pilibhit assembly seat be provided within three days.