Party-appointed BLAs barely present as Delhi’s month-long SIR exercise clocks four days

Four days into the door-to-door special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Delhi, booth-level agents (BLAs), appointed by political parties to assist electors and ensure transparency, are largely missing on the ground, resulting in low awareness among residents about the ongoing exercise.The month-long revision exercise, which began on June 30, is under way across 13,033 polling booths in the 70 Assembly constituencies of Delhi.So far, the BJP has appointed 12,809 BLAs across the city, Congress 10,698 and AAP 9,290.

BLAs are appointed by recognized political parties to spread awareness, assist citizens in filling out enumeration forms and improve transparency by ensuring that genuine voters are not deleted from the rolls. The Election Commission encourages parties to appoint a BLA for every polling booth.During visits by The Hindu to various districts, including Central, New Delhi, East, West, South and North West Delhi, several Booth Level Officers (BLOs) said the slow progress of the SIR exercise was partly due to the absence or limited involvement of BLAs.

The BLAs are allowed to fill upto 50 enumeration forms per day on behalf of the residents before publication of the draft electoral roll and 10 forms per day thereafter, and assisting in finding their names in previous SIR rolls.When contacted, the BJP and Congress said they had departed organizational level training and deployed BLAs across the city to extend support to voters and BLOs, helping them find documents, identify dead, shifted and duplicate voters and also locate voters who might get “wrongfully deleted.” AAP did not respond.

‘No contact yet’A BLO in an urban village in Mehrauli said BLAs had been appointed for only one political party across the area’s nine polling booths, but none had contacted the election officials. “One of them himself was not aware of the process. I filled out his form,” the officer said.

“People come with only their voter ID and Aadhaar card, and give it to us. They don’t know what is going on. And we don’t have the luxury to sit them through the entire process; neither are they educated enough to find their names in the previous rolls.

We have to do it ourselves by asking them whatever they know,” they added.In that urban village, the BLO, after distributing the forms door-to-door, have been sitting at a local office, setting up a camp, to help residents fill their forms.Among those waiting for a clarity was Kanti Devi, 39, who thought she can get forms to enrol her children as voters, both now above 18 years of age.

Native from Bihar, she said her own name had been deleted after she was marked as a shifted voter during the revision there. She was informed briefly by the BLO to return a few days later to collect the desired forms, as this is not the right time.BLOs at areas in Malviya Nagar constituency echoed the concern: “If BLAs simply create awareness, residents will know what is happening.

That alone will speed up the process.”In one area in Mehrauli, the only BLA appointed, who works as a cab driver, said, “If I stay here all day, I will lose all my work.”The situation, however, was different at a polling booth in Rohini, where a BLO credited an active BLA for making the process smoother.

“The BLA has been helping spread awareness, going door-to-door with me and identifying electors who have shifted or died,” the officer said. At the same time, another party BLA for the same booth in the area had not contacted her or residents, while around 10 neighboring booths also reported little or no BLA presence.Training to the BLAs was also departed by the Delhi CEO office in run up to the SIR.

“BLAs are not officially mandated to do anything from our end. Our BLOs are present to assist the residents in any way they need. But it is encouraged by the EC so that there is transparency in the process.

They can even submit up to 50 enumeration forms a day on behalf of the residents helping them, flag shifted and dead electors to the BLO,” an election official said.Parties say BLAs engagedDelhi BJP President Harsh Malhotra said that its BLA-2 workers are prepared to extend all possible cooperation and support to the BLOs. He said, after chairing an organizational review meeting over SIR on Friday, “Delhi has a total of 13,033 polling booths, of which more than 12,000 have BJP’s registered BLA-2 representatives.

These BLA-2 workers have been engaged for quite some time in voter verification and mapping at their respective polling stations.”Delhi Congress general secretary (organization) Anil Bhardwaj said that their BLA has been appointed at every polling station. “Our BLA has been told to be present and assist.

Their participation has to be active to see that wrongdoings occur. All were imparted training in all our 14 political districts, explaining their roles and responsibilities. We will take immediate action if anybody is found not working.”

Published - July 04, 2026 09:28 am IST Read Comments Copy link Email