Bengaluru: As Karnataka’s special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls gets underway, the battle is no longer just about voters. Political parties are racing to appoint Booth Level Agents (BLAs), the volunteers who help voters with the verification process and flag any discrepancies, but none of the three major parties has been able to cover all 58,546 polling booths.The biggest challenge has come from local demographics. The BJP says it has appointed BLAs in around 51,000 booths but is yet to fill the remaining 9,000, many of them in Muslim dominated areas. “While we have completed appointments for as many as 51,000 booths, in the rest 9,000 booths due to demographic challenges we have been unable to find volunteers. But we will complete the appointments shortly,” said BJP state general secretary and SIR committee convenor P Rajeev.Party functionaries admitted that many of the uncovered booths are overwhelmingly Muslim dominated, where the BJP has little organisational presence. The JD(S), with a more limited footprint, has appointed around 25,000 BLAs, concentrating on constituencies where it has an established support base. “While we have covered South Karnataka completely, in north Karnataka we have concentrated our efforts in only those segments where we have a local base including present and former MLAs,” said former MLC K A Thippeswamy.The Congress, meanwhile, has taken a different approach. Instead of aiming for uniform coverage, it has deployed more workers in constituencies with sizeable minority populations amid concerns that eligible voters could face deletion during the revision. “Depending upon the constituencies we have decided to deploy more party workers to assist,” said Rajya Sabha MP G C Chandrashekar.Election Commission data also reflects these contrasting strategies. The BJP has appointed the highest number of BLAs in Belagavi and Bengaluru, while the Congress has focused on BBMP Central and Mysuru, both of which have significant minority populations. For voters, the presence of a BLA can make the verification process easier by helping with documentation, correcting errors and ensuring genuine names are not left out of the electoral rolls.GFXTotal number of BLAs appointed by PartiesCongress: 52,419BJP: 48,614JD(S): 14,020*Data as per officials numbers released by the Election Commission as of June 29
