Of BLOs who have done ‘exemplary work’

As we await (with bated breath) the release of the draft electoral rolls once the SIR wraps up at the end of December — following two deadline extensions — a new controversy has erupted. The Election Commission of India (ECI) and BJP leaders have been busy felicitating Booth Level Officers (BLOs) in select states, particularly Uttar Pradesh. While the ECI took to its official X handle to laud a handful of BLOs for ‘exemplary work’, local BJP leaders were running parallel events celebrating their ‘good work’.

Eyebrows were raised, especially since the SIR in Uttar Pradesh has widely been described as chaotic. The ECI bulletin announced that 99.61 per cent of enumeration forms in UP had been digitised by 3.00 pm on 11 December (the original deadline). If all is going so well, why was the deadline extended by two whole weeks to 26 December?

When even the Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer (CEO) could publicly acknowledge that the exercise needed more time, why wasn’t that factored in from the beginning? Might that have prevented desperate BLOs from dying by suicide, under pressure to exclude voters from certain communities, burdened with heavy workloads and punishing deadlines with virtually no training?

In denial of these realities, the ECI singled out a small group of BLOs — mostly women — for completing ‘100 per cent digitisation’ of forms before schedule. The Commission publicised their names, photographs and constituencies, explicitly hinting at rewards for their performance.

Local BJP leaders defended their decision. “What’s wrong in distributing sweets or publicly thanking them for performing a thankless task?” asked Uday Pratap Singh, BJP district president in Jasrana constituency, Firozabad. BJP leader Ankit Chaudhary, who felicitated BLOs at the Gemini Inter College in Phoolbagh, Meerut echoed Singh’s views.

Reacting to BJP MLA Vivekanand Pandey felicitating several BLOs at a gram sabha in Basantpur, Naurangia block, Dhananjay Singh retorted: “All the BLOs are working as BJP agents so obviously the BJP is publicly thanking them. What’s so surprising?”

While conscientious BLOs do deserve thanks for being set such a ‘thankless task’ with such tight deadlines — that turned elastic when convenient — making poster boys and girls of them “should be prohibited” said former chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat. “Such events cast doubts on the impartiality of the BLO concerned,” he added.

Noor Mohammad, former deputy election commissioner and chief electoral officer of Uttar Pradesh, reiterated how vital it was that such an exercise not only be impartial but also be perceived as such. Outstanding work should, he said, be acknowledged and rewarded by the Election Commission alone, not political parties.

CEC Gyanesh Kumar had indeed praised the work of BLOs in Bihar — where the process of collecting enumeration forms was crunched into 30 days, with no extensions.

The pat on the back came despite evidence that prescribed rules were not followed while filling and uploading forms. Many BLOs reportedly skipped mandatory house visits to verify voters and their addresses. In Bihar, the EC waited until the SIR was over. In Uttar Pradesh, felicitations are taking place while it’s still on.

The premature feting of UP’s BLOs raises another question: what reason did the ECI have for extending the deadline by two additional weeks if these high-performers had indeed achieved ‘100 per cent digitisation’ before the original deadline (11 December)?

National Herald reached out to the Election Commission for comments. With no response forthcoming (at the time of going to press), we turned to those on the ground.

****

Sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Ramveer Singh’s irritation was palpable over the phone when asked about a dozen BLOs under him being felicitated by the Election Commission for completing the exercise ahead of schedule. He insisted he was clueless about the posts on X. “On what basis are you saying this? Send me what you claim to have seen,” he fumed. “How can they tweet such a thing when the work is still in progress?”

The SDM’s reaction was baffling, given that a dozen BLOs in Khadda assembly segment, Kushinagar (UP), had been singled out by the Election Commission for successfully digitising the forms and completing ‘100 per cent mapping’. (Knowledgeable sources explained that mapping involves tracing and matching voters’ names and antecedents against the benchmark list of 2002–03.) Several congratulatory tweets were posted by the ECI on the afternoon of 8 December.

What set these BLOs apart and what exactly did they do differently from others who are struggling to complete their work? Tracing the phone numbers of the Khadda BLOs was not difficult, as they had been shared with voters and political parties. Telephonic conversations — audio-recorded since most declined video interviews — proved to be both surprising and, at times, downright hilarious.

Our first call was to Rukmini Devi (names of all BLOs and their family members have been changed to protect privacy), an Anganwadi worker. Her son Dharmendra answered and said there was no point speaking to his mother — he was handling the work himself but couldn’t spare a moment, he was too busy feeding data online.

The next call to Vinita Devi was also answered by her son Sunil, who was slightly more forthcoming. He revealed that all four family members were involved in the work. He claimed to have filled most of the forms himself and added that the servers functioned reliably only after midnight. Others confirmed the problem of patchy servers, which meant starting late and working into the wee hours of the morning before heading out into the field again.

Usha Devi, who has studied up to Class X, confided that her work was far from over. The main difficulty was verifying the details of women who had moved into the constituency after marriage. She was struggling to track the constituency, booth and serial numbers of these bahus’ natal homes, along with information on their parents’ part numbers.

Usha Devi’s husband distributed and collected the forms, while her two children — a daughter who is studying for her B.Ed. degree and a 17-year-old son — helped her upload them. Of the 1,083 forms she had been given, a hundred-odd still remained to be uploaded. No, she hadn’t received any reward, merely the monthly amount of Rs 500 from the ECI.

Shilpa from Muzaffarnagar holds a Master’s degree in sociology. She pointed out some anomalies: the ECI portal showed 903 voters in her booth but she had received 911 forms. Among the BLOs we spoke to, she is the only one who said she had received a day’s ‘training’ and admits to have been felicitated by the SDM. Her rewards were: a kettle, a shawl and a certificate.

Most of the women National Herald spoke to admitted that their husbands and children were helping them out. Shashikala expressed her deep gratitude towards Mithilesh Yadav, who assisted her at the SDM’s request. She also thanked the headmaster and a local teacher for their support.

Conversations with several other BLOs revealed two key points: first, the cursory training provided was inadequate; second, the tight timeline was unrealistic.

Looks like the Election Commission was being economical with the truth when it claimed before-schedule delivery. If the celebrations were meant as a motivational, morale-boosting measure, the clumsiness of the campaign on social media has only (further) undermined the public image and credibility of the Commission.