Kolkata: The Election Commission has asked for the setting up of voter assistance booths (VABs) near polling booths, and a team of booth-level officers (BLOs) will be deputed there to help the voters reach their respective stations to exercise the franchise during the upcoming assembly polls in April. This time, all the BLOs across the state will be pressed into VAB duty during the two-phase elections.The EC’s instruction says that the VABs will have to be “set up with prominent signage and in such a manner that it will be conspicuous to the voters as they approach the polling premise/building to enable them to seek required facilitation on poll day.”According to EC officials, the BLOs, while manning the VABs, will assist the electors in correctly locating their polling booth number and serial number on the electoral roll of the polling booth concerned. “Alphabetic locators (as per English alphabets) generated with ERO-Net are to be placed at these assistance booths so that BLOs can search the names of voters along with their serial numbers easily,” said an EC official.Earlier, BLOs were told verbally that they would be asked to distribute voter slips ahead of the polls. “The VAB is the new additional responsibility given to the BLOs on poll days. This is for the first time the commission has made it mandatory for the BLOs to be on poll duty. Earlier, BLOs’ work on poll days was optional. The booths having more than 1,200 voters required BLOs in addition to other EC officials. But now, it has been made mandatory for all the BLOs to be at VABs on polling days,” said Swapan Mondal, general secretary of Vote Kormi O BLO Aikya Mancha, an outfit of BLOs in the state.The decision has, however, received a mixed response from the BLOs. A BLO from Tollygunge said: “No clear guideline about the VABs, where we will be posted on poll days, has been given. But the assistance booths are necessary because I understood during the SIR process that people have endless poll-related queries. My request to the EC is that there ought to be adequate security measures for our safety.” Another BLO from Beliaghata said: “Initially, we were told that BLOs’ role would be confined to the enumeration exercise. But new tasks are being assigned to us one after another.” Some BLOs called their poll duty at VABs logical since they worked closely with electors since the rollout of the SIR.
