Ranchi’s electoral-roll revision has entered a critical final phase, with booth-level officers struggling to verify voters who are unavailable, unresponsive or have not submitted documents before the final roll is scheduled for publication on November 30.
Booth-level officers said most fieldwork had been completed, but repeated visits to some households had not produced the information required to close verification cases. Some electors were not available at home or could not be contacted by phone, while others did not respond to notices or attend hearings linked to their cases.
BLO Saloni Tuti said she was still trying to reach 43 voters. Some electors had collected forms, including Forms 6 and 8, but did not return them after filling them out. Others could not be contacted despite visits, polling-booth camps and special drives. “I have waited at the polling booth during various camps and special drives, but all my efforts have gone in vain,” Tuti said.
Another BLO, Sochanti Kumari, said 50 cases remained incomplete because the concerned voters had not submitted the required documents. Several electors also failed to appear for hearings after receiving notices. “In some cases, people told me they were not interested, while others said they were not bothered if their names were not on the electoral roll,” she said.
The verification difficulty comes as the Election Commission continues to process applications after the claims and objections period. According to the latest Special Intensive Revision bulletin, dated November 6, 15.84 lakh applications had been digitised. These included requests for fresh enrolment, objections and applications seeking corrections in electoral records.
Officials in the office of chief electoral officer K Ravi Kumar said the continued processing of applications was important for eligible citizens who may have missed the earlier exercise or still needed to seek enrolment or corrections. However, digitisation by itself does not confirm approval or guarantee inclusion in the final electoral roll.
A November 4 update showed that 26.22 lakh cases remained pending under categories including no-mapping, logical discrepancy and other classifications, even though overall disposal had reached 88.15%. The figures indicate the administrative scale of the final verification exercise, which requires BLOs to reconcile records while continuing outreach to voters who have not responded.
The deadline for disposing of claims and objections is November 23. BLOs must complete pending verification, serve eligible electors and process documentation before the final roll is published. Kumar said each BLO had to serve around 900 electors through house visits and urged residents to prioritise requests from BLOs handling electoral processes so that all voters could be served within the available timeline.
