Abhijit Roy Chowdhury
New Delhi, 2 October : Faced with mounting criticism over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the Election Commission has taken another U-turn, ordering a special drive to identify eligible voters left out of the current electoral rolls and facilitate their re-enrolment across all States and Union Territories.
In a fresh directive to Chief Electoral Officers, the Commission has instructed Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to compare the current electoral rolls with the pre-SIR rolls and prepare lists of electors whose names appeared in the earlier rolls but are missing from the current rolls.
The move comes after completion of the SIR exercise, during which BLOs prepared lists of voters categorised as Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate (ASDD), along with the probable reasons for their non-inclusion. These lists were displayed locally, shared with political parties and uploaded on the websites of Chief Electoral Officers.
The ECI has now directed BLOs to conduct house-to-house visits to ascertain the present status of such electors and facilitate their enrolment through Form 6 wherever they are found eligible. Each BLO has been asked to cover at least 20–25 electors a week, with the exercise expected to be completed in about a month.
The drive will also cover left-out, first-time and young voters, with BLOs instructed to facilitate Form 6 applications during their visits.
The lists will be shared with Booth Level Agents of recognised political parties, while Electoral Registration Officers will subsequently share booth-wise lists with political-party representatives.
The Commission has also ordered Booth Level Camps and special enrolment camps for people living in night shelters, labour colonies, and for homeless and marginalised persons.
The ECI reiterated that voter enrolment is a continuous process, allowing eligible citizens who have not been enrolled or whose names have been deleted to apply for enrolment at any time.
