Election Commission of India (ECI) approved a proposal of a programme for Special Summary Revision of Electoral Rolls, by the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka (CEO-KA). Of the nine listed activities in the letter, we the citizens should note the following:
| 1. | House to house visit by BLOs | 16 Jul to 10 Aug 2018 |
| 2. | Rationalisation of Polling Stations | 27 Aug to 15 Sep 2018 |
| 3. | Publication of integrated electoral rolls | 10 Oct 2018 |
| 4. | Period for claims and objections | 10 Oct to 20 Nov 2018 |
| 5. | Disposal of claims and objections | by 20 Dec 2018 |
| 6. | Final publication of electoral rolls | 04 Jan 2019 |
House to house visit by BLOs
In an earlier blog post of 14 May, I had argued that the electoral rolls of Bengaluru have about 20 lakh spurious entries. I had written about this issue to the CEO-KA and the Chief Election Commissioner. Though there was no response to my letters and emails, CEO-KA has admitted in his statements to the press that the electoral rolls of Bengaluru are bloated with illegal entries. He had also promised to cleanse the rolls. House to house visit by BLOs is expected to identify fake entries.
Have the BLOs visited? Whitefield Rising has complained to the CEO-KA today that not a single visit of BLO is recorded in Mahadevapura constituency.
As a pleasant surprise, Mrs. Hemavathi, claiming to be the BLO of my part (227 of Basavanagudi Constituency), visited me at home this Independence Day afternoon. BLO ID card issued to her by the District Electoral Officer showed the part as ‘LAC,’ whatever it may mean. She had a copy of photo electoral roll of the part with her and I trusted her to be the BLO for the part. However, CEO-KA website shows one Mr. Narasimha Swamy as the BLO for the part.
Purpose of giving BLO details at CEO-KA website is to help citizens to reach out to them for help. The data there has been mostly fake for many years, irrespective of complaints from various NGOs and citizens.
Why should you care, what do you need to do?
Rationalisation of Polling Stations would result in addition of some polling stations and shuffling of voters across parts. Subsequently we may find our names in parts different from the current parts. There also have been several cases in Karnataka and other states where voters got deleted due to lack of diligence in the process.
This is what you can do:
- If a BLO has not visited you or your friends/neighbours, complain to the CEO-KA about the lapse.
- When the new electoral rolls are published on 10 October 2018, please make sure that your names are in the voter lists. If you find them missing, register again, filing Form-6. If some fake entries are found in your house, get them deleted using Form-7. If the data is wrong, get them corrected by filing Form- 8 or Form-8A. The EROs will accept these forms between 10 October and 20 November.
- If you file any of the above forms, they should be finalised by 20 December. Monitor the status at CEO-KA website.
- When the CEO-KA publishes the final electoral rolls at his website on 04 January 2019, please check that your name is in it and the details are correct. Data loss and data corruption happens with each new version of the electoral rolls. We have to check our records every time the CEO-KA publishes a new version.
Note: This was first published on the author’s blog, and republished here with permission.
I have submitted my application in voterreg.kar.nic.in on 24th July 18 almost a month back. But there is no clarity on at what stage the application is. Every time it shows under process if we check the status. I tried calling the contact numbers given, they say, they do not have any information about the status of the application. And they inform us to speak to BBMP office. And they say, they don’t know any status on that. This whole process is like someone doing his MBA degree.
anand u have to submit hard copy of the application in bbmp office too.