New Delhi: Questions have emerged over the implementation of Delhi’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) after official figures revealed that booth-level
agents (BLAs) submitted more than the 10 applications per day, the cap set by the Election Commission, reported The Hindu. The additional applications were filed through the Election Commission’s ECINET portal, which does not impose the daily restriction applicable during the claims and objections process. It was found out that the software used to submit these forms cannot impose the prescribed limit of 10 forms. Meanwhile, a review of Form 10 reports published between September 21 and 27, which publicly record objections to names on electoral rolls, found that four individuals submitted more than 10 applications in a single day, reported the media house. As per the report, out of these four individuals, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) BLA Chitresh Chandoliya filed 35 objections in two days – 12 on September 21 and 23 on September 22. In one instance, 20-year-old Sangam Vihar resident Apoorv Dwivedy was shown as having submitted a Form 7 objection seeking the removal of his own name from the electoral roll on the grounds that he was ‘dead’. For the unversed, Form 7 is used to challenge the inclusion of a person in the electoral roll or seek the deletion of an existing voter’s name. Chitresh is the son of BJP’s North West Delhi MP Yogender Chandoliya. Chitresh told the media house that there is no option online to specify that a person submitting these forms is a party-appointed BLA. He also points out that for filing bulk forms online, there is no such limit of submitting only 10 forms.
What Do EC Guidelines State?
Election Commission guidelines allow booth-level agents (BLAs) of recognised political parties to submit applications in bulk after the draft electoral roll is published, but limit each BLA to a maximum of 10 forms per day.
The rules further mandate that applications filed through Forms 6 (inclusion), 7 (objection or deletion) and 8 (correction or modification) be digitised and uploaded daily on the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s website, along with other consolidated statutory reports.
However, official records indicate that nearly a month into the claims and objections phase, details of individual applications have yet to be made available on the CEO’s website.
The Hindu report further claimed that all form 7s submitted by Chitresh for Karol Bagh residents mentioned 'absent/permanently shifted' as the reason. He gave clarification that the people whose Form 7s were submitted did not lie at their mentioned address.
The Hindu visited several addresses linked to Form 7 applications filed by the BJP BLA and found Karnail Singh residing at his listed address. Chitresh, however, told the media house that he had sought Singh’s deletion from the electoral roll because the voter lived “far from his booth”.
