Pune: BLOs across the state face another demanding door-to-door exercise after the publication of the draft electoral roll on Aug 24. The State CEO’s office has directed them to personally serve hearing notices to voters flagged for anomalies or ‘no linkage’ during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) field exercise.As many as 15.4 lakh electors in Pune may have to undergo the hearing process. The figure may reduce when documents submitted during the verification resolve some cases. However, the scale of the exercise has raised concern among BLOs and political observers, coming immediately after weeks of the field exercise.Pune has 90,80,173 electors, with 99.99% of enumeration forms distributed and 99.94% digitised. Officials said the remaining would be completed over the next three days.Based on digitised records, 7,25,049 electors have been flagged for anomalies and 8,18,398 as having ‘no linkage’. Together, they account for 15,43,447 electors who could receive notices.Officials stressed that an anomaly does not automatically mean an incorrect voter record. The flags can come up from discrepancies in age, spelling of names or difficulties in mapping current electors against the 2002 electoral rolls.The software can flag a case if the recorded age gap between siblings is less than nine months. Such cases will have to be individually examined and cannot be treated as errors or grounds for deletion.The “no linkage” category comprises voters whose names were not found in the 2002 roll and for whom a link could not be established with parents, grandparents or other eligible relatives appearing in the old rolls.The notices generated through the software will have to be physically delivered by BLOs. Electoral Registration Officers will subsequently examine supporting documents and take decisions under the applicable SIR rules.BLOs said the physical delivery requirement would mean another round of house-to-house visits. “Why can’t the State CEO office develop a method to serve notices online or through SMS or WhatsApp?” a BLO working in a govt office said.Another BLO from PMC garden department said, “Our distribution and digitisation work is almost complete. A large number of notices would now mean additional pressure to locate voters and reach their homes.”
