Election Commission looking to blame political parties for exclusion of eligible voters?

Not much attention has been paid to the Election Commission’s repeated claims that the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar is supported by 1.5 lakh ‘BLAs’ appointed by all political parties.

In separate press releases issued on Tuesday and Wednesday (14 and 15 July) this week, the following sentence has appeared in the last paragraph: “The BLOs are being supported in their efforts by the 1.5 lakh BLAs appointed by all political parties, each one of whom can certify and submit up to 50 EFs per day”.

The claim has added to the mystery around the exercise — because the reaction of political parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and the CPI(ML) suggest that they remain clueless about this ‘contribution’ of theirs. Indeed, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav shared a video to accuse the Election Commission of outsourcing the SIR to the BJP.

Several opposition parties have shared photographs of BJP leaders ‘assisting the voters’ or supporting the BLO in filling up forms and verifying documents. If the Election Commission expected all political parties to assist in the exercise, why would they react so cynically? Or is it possible that some political parties were alerted in advance while others were not?

The reaction of the opposition parties does indicate that the ECI may not have alerted them at least to lend their workers to ‘support’ the BLOs.

Even otherwise, the ECI’s claim that 1.5 lakh BLAs were appointed by ‘all political parties in the state’ is confusing. How would ‘booth level agents’ meet up with the BLOs and move from door to door? When were they appointed?

Since the ECI first revealed its plan to conduct the SIR on 24 June 2025, from the very next day, one presumes the Election Commission would have requested ‘all political parties’ to appoint BLAs in the preceding weeks. However, no information appears to be available on whether and when such a request was made.

The “1.5 lakh BLAs appointed by all political parties” appears to be an afterthought on the part of the Election Commission, actually, because earlier press releases only spoke of ‘4 lakh volunteers’ in addition to 1 lakh BLOs doing the job.

There are also other unanswered questions.

Assuming the election commission had indeed asked political parties to ‘appoint’ BLAs, were the BLOs instructed to coordinate with the agents of all political parties? How did the ECI arrive at the figure of 1.5 lakh BLAs when the number would be much higher if all political parties appointed even one booth level agent to support every BLO? Surely coordinating this exercise with all political parties during the one-month period would be nearly impossible?

It is not clear whether there is any precedence for the Election Commission to solicit the help of political parties in the revision of rolls either. It would be unusual because the political parties, being ‘interested parties’, may well have a stake in manipulating the rolls.

While individual citizens and political parties and political workers are encouraged to submit objections and question the enrolment of voters submitting fake documents or incorrect information — they also routinely assist the voters in getting themselves enrolled — any revision exercise is generally conducted by government employees. Government school teachers, Anganwadi workers, ASHA workers and supervisors in municipalities are generally used by the ECI in the revision of rolls. Booth level agents are typically only assigned to booths on polling days and counting days.

What is also puzzling is the silence of the other political parties to the Election Commission’s claim. The opposition has all along been saying that they were not taken into confidence by the ECI, which held no consultations with them; that the announcement about the SIR on 24 June came as a surprise to them. While they have been critical about the hasty exercise and have been pointing out the mess on the ground which threatens to disenfranchise even eligible and adult citizens in the state, they have been quiet so far about the claim of ‘BLAs appointed by all political parties’.

The design seems to be to emphasise the role of political parties and shift the blame for the mess to them. What can the poor ECI do, after all, if political parties do not know their responsibilities and fail to ‘appoint’ agents?