Delhi’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls will allow Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to collect documents from the homes of voters who have received notices over discrepancies in the voter list, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office said in an official statement on September 29.
The arrangement is intended to make the hearing process easier for affected voters and reduce the need for them to visit the offices of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs). Under the procedure, BLOs will visit the concerned households, collect the relevant documents and upload them to the ECINet platform for consideration by the ERO.
The Chief Electoral Officer’s office said voters covered by the notices would not be called to the ERO or AERO office for a hearing in the normal course. The statement said hearings would be held only in special circumstances, with the decision left to the ERO. Wherever possible, such hearings will be conducted online.
The process also allows an adult member of a voter’s family to be authorised to appear on the voter’s behalf if necessary. The election authorities have asked voters who receive notices to provide the required documents when the BLO visits their homes. They will not ordinarily need to travel to an ERO or AERO office for the hearing process.
The change places the BLO at the centre of the document-collection stage. Instead of requiring every notified voter to navigate an administrative office, the process brings the first point of submission to the household. The documents will then move through the election machinery digitally, with the ERO responsible for taking a decision after the material is uploaded to ECINet.
The decision comes as the timetable for Delhi’s SIR process has been extended. The Election Commission had announced on September 25 that the period for filing claims and objections under the revision would be extended by one month to October 30. The deadline for resolving notices, claims and objections has also been extended by one month to November 30.
The final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on December 4. Until then, voters who have received notices will need to provide the documents requested by the authorities during the BLO’s home visit. The official statement did not specify the number of voters who have received notices or list the categories of documents required in each individual case.
