NEW DELHI: Over 13,000 booth-level officers (BLOs) will fan out across the city from Tuesday to begin a month-long special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, covering nearly 1.5 crore electors through door-to-door verification to make the roll free of errors such as duplicate entries.The office of the chief electoral officer said it would discuss with the Election Commission the issue of voters whose houses were demolished recently, including in north Delhi’s Yamuna Bazaar. “The cases of electors affected by demolition are a special category and we will deal with them separately,” Delhi CEO Ashok Kumar said.Officials said no document needs to be submitted with the enumeration form. However, electors whose names — or those of their parents or grandparents — cannot be linked to the rolls from the 2002 SIR may have to give supporting documents during the claims and objections phase. Voters can verify their names on the poll panel’s portal or through the Voter Helpline app. The house-to-house verification will continue till July 29, following which polling stations will be rationalised, said Kumar.
Month-long SIR of poll roll
SIR: What happens if house is locked?
The draft electoral roll will be published on Aug 5, claims and objections accepted till Sept 4 and the final electoral roll will be out on Oct 7. An official said the rationalisation of polling stations was aimed at ensuring an equitable distribution of voters across booths and improving polling accessibility during elections.Of the registered electors in Delhi, 77.1 lakh are men, 67.9 lakh women and 1,024 thirdgender voters spread across 13,033 polling stations. BLOs will distribute enumeration forms to every existing elector at the registered address between June 30 and July 29. If a house is found locked, they will leave the forms there and make at least three attempts to collect the filled ones.
What you need to know
Explaining the challenge regarding the demolished houses, Kumar said, “BLOs cannot hand over enumeration forms because they will find only an open ground where people earlier lived. Even if someone fills the form online, verification can be carried out only at the designated address,” said Kumar.The CEO added that voters whose names don’t figure in the draft electoral roll can submit claims during the claims and objections period using their new residential address. Election officials will consider the new addresses if they are secured before the claims and objections period.The poll panel said reserve BLOs had also been kept ready to meet contingencies, including additional workload or disruptions during the month-long exercise.
