West Bengal SIR: Over 18 lakh enumeration forms distributed on Day 1

Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have been making door-to-door visits across West Bengal since the morning on Tuesday, which marked the first day of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.

 

Over 18 lakh enumeration forms were distributed till 5 pm.

 

The Election Commission is confident that the voter updating process will be completed within a month across the 23 districts.

 

Voters whose names are not on the 2002 SIR list or the 2025 voter list will not receive an enumeration form. West Bengal has around 7.6 crore electorate.

 

Booth Level Agents (BLA) from various political parties accompanied the BLOs who visited each household, distributing two sets of enumeration forms and explaining the whole process to voters. 

 

While these are Level 1 BLAs, Level 2 BLAs have been deployed at polling booths to assist voters with the filing of the enumeration form and submission of required documents. The aim is to clear doubts that voters may have and ensure all eligible voters make it to the final SIR list.

 

As per EC’s data, a total of 63,940 BLAs have officially submitted their forms from various political parties. The break-up is as follows:

 

24,858 - BJP

18,706 - CPI(M )

1,053 - Forward Bloc 

13,526 - Trinamool Congress

5797 - Indian National Congress

 

NPP, BSP and AAP have not submitted any form so far.

 

These numbers are, however, likely to rise with more BLA requests expected in the following days. 

 

Currently, there are 1,200 voters per BLO. If the need arises, the voters per booth can be split further to simplify the SIR process. Hence, more BLAs will be required to smoothen the process of voter outreach. 

 

There are 80,681 BLOs on the field, while 14,000 BLOs are in reserve.

 

Teachers raise concern

 

Meanwhile, the Central and state government teachers, who are doubling up as BLOs, have raised concerns about whether they would be marked as absent during the month-long exercise. The EC says the decision to mark them on or off duty does not lie with the Commission, but with the Central or State government under whom the teachers are employed.

 

The online submission of enumeration forms, as an additional facility for voters, has not begun as the process has yet to be formulated by the EC. 

 

Usage of a microphone or mike system may be implemented in smaller areas to spread information on the distribution and collection of enumeration forms. 

 

A central team from ECI will visit the districts of Coochbehar, Alipurduars and Jalpaiguri on the Bangladesh border. The team will remain in the state till November 8.

India