The Election Commission has introduced a new feature in its BLO App allowing booth-level officers to upload additional documents for West Bengal voters whose appeals against electoral-roll deletions are pending before SIR tribunals. The facility is intended to help judicial officers examine supplementary evidence before deciding whether names should be restored.
The feature, titled “Upload documents against Appeal”, was introduced on Thursday, according to Election Commission officials cited by The Times of India. Booth-level officers will collect additional documents from voters who have filed appeals against deletions and upload them through the application for scrutiny by the relevant judicial officer.
The move comes as a large number of cases remain unresolved. An affidavit submitted by the Election Commission to the Supreme Court in September stated that around 38 lakh appeals had been filed before tribunals. Judicial officers had cleared around 33 lakh voters for inclusion after examining 60 lakh cases under adjudication, according to the affidavit cited in the report.
A senior EC official said voters who had already submitted documents notified by the Commission for the appeal process could now provide additional material through their BLOs. The official stressed that the judicial officer, rather than the BLO, would decide whether a voter’s name should be restored to the electoral roll.
The new process is already being considered by voters with pending cases. Raju Sahu, a resident of Hazra Road in Kolkata, told The Times of India that he planned to approach his BLO to upload further documents. Sahu said he had filed an appeal in April but remained unaware of its progress, despite having submitted documents during the revision process.
However, the feature has also exposed an administrative communication gap. BLOs cited in the report said they had not received instructions from electoral registration officers on how to use the new function for tribunal appellants. They had previously been told that voters whose appeals were pending would not be covered by the ongoing special drive for the inclusion of deleted and new voters.
Swapan Mondal, general secretary of Votekarmi o BLO Aikyamancha, said the new procedure had not been communicated to BLOs. The absence of clear instructions could affect how quickly voters are able to submit additional documents, even though the technical facility has been added to the application.
The development also follows claims by the Civic Research Group that appeals had been filed against the inclusion of 15.5 lakh names cleared by judicial officers. The group said it had digitised supplementary electoral rolls and checked Electors Photo Identity Card numbers to identify appeals against those inclusions. It could not, however, establish whether all the appeals had been filed by the Election Commission, noting that individuals may also have initiated them.
The immediate administrative task is therefore twofold: enabling voters with pending appeals to submit further evidence and ensuring that BLOs and electoral registration officers receive consistent instructions on the process. Final decisions on restoration of names remain with the judicial officers handling the tribunal cases.
