: The Opposition parties raised the issue of the caste and religion of personnel appointed for the revision of voter lists while discussing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state during a meeting with Uttar Pradesh chief electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa here on Wednesday.
Rinwa assured the representatives of political parties that the SIR exercise will be transparent.
“It will be ensured that voters do not face any inconvenience during SIR,” he said.” A meeting with recognised political parties was held on Wednesday and detailed information was provided about the process, guidelines, and schedule of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) at the meeting,” Rinwa said in a press statement.
The CEO urged the parties to submit the list of booth level agents who will work in coordination with booth level officers appointed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for SIR.
“ECI will be apprised of the issues raised by the political parties,” he said. A presentation on the SIR was also made during the meeting.The Samajwadi Party demanded that before conducting SIR for 15.44 crore voters in the 403 assembly constituencies in the state, the BLOs and EROs appointed on the basis of caste and religion should be removed.
SIR should be conducted by including people of all castes and religions without any discrimination, so that ECI’s credibility is not questioned, the SP demanded.SP state president Shyam Lal Pal handed over a memorandum to the CEO for removal of BLOs appointed on the basis of caste and religion.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) representatives urged the CEO to provide copies of electoral rolls of 2003 and 2025 to booth level agents (BLAs) appointed by the party.The Election Commission should ensure that the BLOs visit the Dalits household during the enumeration phase and assist them in filling the documents, the BSP representatives said. Uttar Pradesh Congress representative Anas Khan said parties urged the CEO that ECI should ensure that revision of the voter list does not turn into a drive to check the citizenship of the voters. “The ECI should ensure there should be uniformity in the number of voters enrolled in a polling booth. All family members should be enrolled in one booth,” he said.
The parties also urged the CEO to provide the list of BLOs appointed.The BLOs should visit door to door during the SIR exercise, he said. The representatives of the BJP, CPI (M) and Apna Dal (S) also participated in the meeting. Each BLA will be able to collect a maximum of 50 counting forms per day and submit them to the BLO, according to a press statement by the CEO.
BLOs will go door-to-door to distribute and collect the counting forms, and each voter will be given a receipt.The voter list is available on voters.eci.gov.in and ceouttarpradesh.nic.in. No polling station will have more than 1,200 voters.There are a total of 15.44 crore voters and 1,62,486 polling stations in the state. Volunteers will be deployed for the elderly, disabled, sick, and disadvantaged sections.The district magistrate and the chief electoral officer will hear claims and objections.