Guwahati, Sept 18: Ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in Assam, the electoral roll revision process has gathered momentum, with the Election Commission of India (ECI) directing booth-level officers (BLOs) to update house numbers against voters’ names.
“We are asked to visit the voters whose house numbers are not available. We need to collect the house numbers and submit the list. This is part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is not saying anything because the case has been going on at the Supreme Court,” said a BLO.
The officer added that BLOs have been instructed to carry out the revision work after school hours. “In the training session, there were talks of SIR and BLO forms. In case of new voters, we were told about the documents to check—birth certificate, photograph, parents’ voter identity card and address proof. For deletion, we were suggested to look for death certificates,” he said.
Assam Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anurag Goel has already issued instructions to all district election officers (DEOs) to ensure readiness.
In a directive dated August 4, the CEO emphasised that all electoral registration officers (EROs), assistant EROs (AEROs) and BLOs must be in position before the SIR schedule is declared.
Additional BLOs for newly created polling stations after rationalisation are to be identified in advance, ready for appointment once ECI approval is received.
Assam last underwent an intensive revision of electoral rolls in 1997, when the ECI, for the first time, tagged some voters in the state as ‘doubtful’ or ‘D voters.’ The D-voter category remains unique to Assam, with 94,477 such voters currently listed.
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