Hyderabad: Many residents in Hyderabad’s Old City were taken by surprise on Tuesday morning when they called a booth level officer (BLO) of the Election Commission to help them identify their names in the 2002 electoral polls as part of the pre-SIR mapping exercise. Instead of a BLO who knew the rule book, in walked a sanitation worker of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) who had no idea of how to map voters.This issue came to light at Barkas, under the Chandrayangutta constituency, when residents noticed the name and contact number of an assigned BLO on the Election Commission website and contacted them.“About 20 of us were waiting at Al-Qurmoshi Global School in Salala, Barkas. As we spoke to him, we realised he did not even know the role of a BLO. It was only when I mentioned SIR mapping that he came to the location,” said Syed Jallaluddin Zafar, an activist who was helping residents with the mapping process. “He could not read or write in Telugu. He simply handed over the phone and asked us to enter the details into an online form,” Zafar said. The video of the incident recorded by Zafar has since gone viral on X.Although there is no explicit rule prohibiting sanitation workers from being appointed as BLOs, the guidelines state that such roles are generally assigned to govt or semi-govt staff, such as teachers, anganwadi workers, panchayat staff, clerks and bill collectors — individuals who are expected to have basic literacy skills and administrative experience.One of the sanitation workers appointed as a BLO said that they had been given smartphones for SIR work. “Along with me, around 10 such workers have been deployed for the exercise. We were asked to open the portal on the phone and hand it to the person, who then enters his or her details into a form. If the name appears, they put a tick. I attended a training session where we were promised payment,” he said.The man, who is employed as a sanitation worker, added that he starts work at 5 am and then continues the SIR duty after finishing his shift at 2 pm. “I cannot read or write in Telugu or English. We were only told to put a tick if their name appeared. It has only been two days since we started this work,” he said.‘Acute shortage of staff’Responding to the concerns, the electoral registration officer (ERO) of the Chandrayangutta constituency said the appointments had been made due to an acute shortage of staff. “Many personnel have retired, and the scale of the exercise is large, so this is a stop-gap arrangement. In our area, we have three sweepers working as BLOs, but we ensured that those appointed had studied at least up to Class 9 and had basic proficiency. However, they will be replaced soon,” said V Surender, the ERO.
