Parties mobilise BLAs to aid aggrieved voters
PATNA, Aug. 22 -- With only 11 days to go before the conclusion of the claims and objection process under the Special Intensive Revision ( SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, major political parties including Opposition RJD and ruling BJP have mobilised their booth level agents (BLAs) by assigning them the task to help voters who have missed out of the draft electoral rolls to get enrolled and also to correct any anomalies in the draft rolls.
The mobilisation of BLAs is seemingly more pronounced in the Opposition INDIA bloc constituents, especially the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and CPI-ML(liberation), which have a large number of BLAs at their disposal, people close to these parties said. The RJD and ML have also been aggressive in attacking the alleged discrepancies in SIR and have been protesting the deletion of 6.5 million voters on account of death, being shifted or having voter registrations at more than one place.
On Wednesday, leader of the Opposition in Bihar assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav held a meeting with all district presidents by issuing instructions that the party's BLAs should look into problems of voters in their respective areas, like omission of names from draft rolls, errors in names or other anomalies and get them all fixed by filling required forms and also put objections/ claims as per prescribed format.
"We have geared up BLAs because there have been enormous deletions in the draft rolls and many of the voters who are physically present at their residence have not been enrolled. So, our party BLAs are at work helping voters from all sections to solve their problems, be it putting forth applications for enrolment of names of voters having been missed in the draft rolls or those who would attain the age of 18 by October 1 as well as those voters who have issues regarding submission of documents with enumeration forms," said Chittranjan Gagan, RJD's senior leader who looks after election affairs.
The RJD, being the principal Opposition party in Bihar, has around 45,000 BLAs at the local booth level, party insiders said.
Referring to forms filled by RJD-appointed BLAs, Gagan claimed that the party functionaris have so far assisted in filling forms for inclusion of names of over 5,000 voters and also helped a few thousand voters in the documentation process. "But the problem is that the election authorities are not giving any receipt after submission of forms for inclusion of names or correction of any errors through our BLAs," he claimed.
The political parties have been given the list of names of deleted voters, which has now helped the parties to reach out to such voters who have missed out from the draft rolls for various reasons including not filling up enumeration forms in stipulated time frame, officials said.
Significantly, the CPI-ML(liberation) , a major Left party in Bihar, too has fielded the BLAs of the party to assist voters and those people who have missed out their names in the draft rolls for various reasons. Party's senior leader Pervej claimed that so far more than 500 voters in different districts have been helped by the party's BLAs in filling forms for inclusion of names and also correction of other errors.
"Our party BLAs are going through the draft rolls carefully and enquiring into names of those voters who despite being physically present at their residences were not included in the list, We have also highlighted how certain voters were categorised as dead despite being alive like Minto Paswan. Now, our focus is on giving objections/ claims through the proper format as required by the Election Commission of India. So far, we have made two such applications , one in Bhojpur and one in Rohtas," said Pervej.
The ML has around 25,000 BLAs across the state. Other constituents of the INDIA bloc in Bihar like Congress, CPI, CPM too have tasked their BLAs to assist the voters in various areas, party insiders said.
On the other hand, the ruling BJP too has moblised its BLAs to assist voters in enrolment of names or putting requests for transfer of voters from one booth to other depending on their mobility, officials said. Prem Ranjan Patel, state BJP spokesperson, said that all party-appointed BLAs, numbering around 60,000, have been entrusted to go through the draft rolls and assist voters who have either been missed out in draft rolls or were not included in the draft rolls for various other reasons.
"Our BLAs have been instructed to look into draft rolls and reach out to voters who have any problems, be it regarding non-enrolment, document submission or wrong entries," said Patel. He said there would be a meeting with party senior leaders at the district level in the next few days to discuss issues like transfer of a big number of voters to other booths during rationalisation and other poll-related matters.
"We will also send requests to the election department to ensure that voters are not put in booths away from their houses or face other issues. Many voters have shifted to other booths from their previous booths because of the rationalisation of polling stations under which additional 12,000 plus booths have been created. This will be done before the conclusion of the objection/claims process by August 30," said Patel. The ruling JD(U), LJP( RV) and other allies of NDA too have tasked their BLAs to help voters.
Meanwhile, state election department officials said that there is a clear guideline that any party appointed BLA can give 30 applications during the period of claims/objections for correction of anomalies in the draft rolls like correction of entries, transfer of voter from one booth to other, etc. "For inclusion of names, there is a prescribed Form-6. For other objections/claims, a prescribed format is required to be filled by BLAs," said an election official.
Election officials also said that all applications put in objection/claims period would be scrutinised and disposed of as per norms within a time frame. The claims and objection process which started on August 1 would end on September 1, as per SIR timeline. The final publication of the updated electoral rolls as per SIR would be done on September 30.
As per data, the ECI till 20 August had received 60,010 forms from electors regarding inclusion of eligible electors and exclusion of ineligible electors whereas 1.98 lakh Form-6 submission for inclusion of names of electors on attaining 18 years of age had been received....
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