EC ISSUES NOTICES TO 35 BLOs, RULES OUT RE-VERIFICATIONPearl.DSouza@timesofindia.comBengaluru: Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer V Anbukumar on Monday said the Election Commission has issued notices to 35 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) for violating guidelines by mass distributing enumeration forms during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.The notices were issued after the Election Commission sought reports from district election officials on complaints received. The responses were examined before action was initiated against the officials concerned.With notices having been issued against erring officials, Kumar did not indicate that the Election Commission would undertake any re-verification of the exercise.Dismissing allegations that the Election Commission was partisan towards the ruling dispensation in the state, Kumar said, “Every complaint is and will be looked into, and we will act as per law.”The complaints, he said, were received from political parties, largely by July 1.“I deny the allegations that there are a large number of places in the state where group distribution of enumeration forms has taken place. I have reports on all the cases received,” he said, displaying a list of complaints.In several cases, it was found that the BLOs had not called voters to a designated spot, but crowds had gathered on their own.Distribution exceeds 80 pc: Cities lagBLOs have distributed forms to 82.45% of the state’s 5.5 crore electors. But urban areas lagged : largely due to the long distances they have to travel to the location of enumeration and the difficulty of finding voters at home during the day.While digitisation of the completed forms currently stands at 10.22%, as on 6 pm, Wednesday, officials expect the pace to increase significantly over the remaining three weeks of the exercise, which concludes July 29.While collecting forms, political party-appointed BLA-2s are permitted to submit up to 50 forms a day to the BLOs for verification. “BLAs have to give an undertaking for this,” Kumar said.Responding to complaints that spelling discrepancies were making it difficult for voters to complete the forms, officials said corrections can be made either during the BLO’s house visit or after the draft electoral rolls are published through Form 8.Officials could not collect 1.48 lakh forms across the state because the electors were absent, had shifted, were deceased, had duplicate entries, or for other reasons such as change of nationality or refusal to sign. Kumar said these details would be shared with political parties through their BLAs so they could flag any names that had been wrongly categorised.Responding to complaints about difficulties with the online application process, Kumar said voters can now link their mobile numbers, and any mismatch between names on the voter ID and Aadhaar should no longer be a hindrance as the issue has been resolved.For those unable to find their names on the electoral rolls, Kumar advised them to sign the enumeration form and hand it over to the BLO. “All signed forms will make it to the draft list,” he said.
