Bihar electoral roll revision: Parties increase booth-level agents amid concerns

Hindustan Times

9 hours ago

Political parties have expanded their polling booth-level agent (BLA) networks in poll-bound Bihar amid disenfranchisement concerns over the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s special intensive revision of the electoral roll. The agents have increased from 138,000 to 156,000, according to the ECI data until July 2. Polls are due in Bihar later this year. (PTI/File)
BLAs are allowed to submit 50 enumeration forms daily after verification. As per revision guidelines, BLAs can submit the forms with an undertaking that they have personally verified the particulars and are satisfied that they are correct.
Opposition parties have questioned the delay in announcing the revision months before the polls are due. They have argued it could have been undertaken earlier. ECI has, over the last decade, accepted Aadhaar and the ration card for inclusion in the electoral roll. The Opposition parties have said those without additional documents, particularly backward communities, will find themselves deprived of their right to vote and will have to run around.
Bihar Congress spokesperson Gyan Ranjan said they were paying close attention to people from marginalised sections, who are particularly anxious about being left out.
An ECI official said the district presidents of national and state-level political parties are expediting the appointment of BLAs to ensure the success of the revision. 'This means the target of over 7.5 million form submissions can be achieved in one day,' said the official, who did not want to be named. 'Even if they work with half the capacity, more than 3.7 million electors' enumeration forms would be submitted on time along with the documents.'
The Congress has nearly doubled its BLAs, from 8,586 to 16,500. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and ally Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), have added 6,738 agents, totalling 34,669, marking a 24% increase.
The BJP now has 52,689 agents after adding 725 new ones. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has increased its agents by 361 to 47,504. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has increased its BLAs from 76 to 578, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation from 233 to 1,271.
JD(U) spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan Prasad said the party did not have a strong BLA network in the previous elections. He added that they have strengthened the organisational base by expanding booth-level committees. 'We have introduced newer systems, and BLAs, along with booth-level committees, will assist the people to ensure that they get into the electoral roll.'
JD(U)'s core support base of the Extremely Backward Classes accounts for 36.01% of Bihar's population, according to the 2022 caste-based survey.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which won five out of the 20 seats it contested in 2020, has not deployed any BLAs due to limited resources. 'We are planning to contest in at least 50 seats, and are deploying people to assist our voter base to fill enumeration forms along with the documents,' said AIMIM Bihar spokesperson Adil Hasan.
BJP spokesperson Guru Prakash Paswan accused the opposition parties of needlessly blowing the issue out of proportion.
The ECI pointed to the increase in the number of BLAs when representatives of 11 parties met top ECI officials to raise their concerns about the electoral roll revision on Wednesday.
Congress lawmaker Abhishek Singhvi, who was among the leaders who met the ECI, said the increase in the BLAs after the revision announcement was among the reasons cited for going ahead with the exercise. 'I pointed out that there is no contradiction in this...you [ECI] make a new rule, we have no option but to increase our BLAs. But that does not mean we cannot ask you [ECI] any question or ask you to change the rule if the rule is wrong.'
On June 24, the ECI announced the revision, emphasising the need to clean the electoral roll due to rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, increasing numbers of first-time voters, non-reporting of deaths, and the inclusion of names of undocumented foreigners.
The ECI has said an electoral roll revision was last held in Bihar in 2003, which covered nearly 50 million people, underlining it has a constitutional obligation to ensure that only citizens are on it. It instructed the electoral registration officers to treat the 2003 electoral roll as 'probative evidence of eligibility, including presumption of citizenship unless they receive any other input otherwise.'