Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The pressure on the Booth Level Officers (BLOs), mostly women, in the city is increasing as the last date of field-work for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls draws closer. They are now being told to upload 150 forms every day.
Caught between the voters and their superiors, the BLOs said that they were under great stress, with some of them claiming that the tremendous pressure may even lead to unpleasant consequences.
They said the voters were not cooperating and most of them were unable to fill the enumeration forms themselves. Locating the names of their family members in the 2003 voters’ list was very problematic, especially for women who had shifted to Madhya Pradesh from other states after marriage.
At the Government Middle School in Dwarka Nagar, Coach Factory, BLOs of eight booths were surrounded by voters making all sorts of inquiries. “A physically-challenged domestic worker told me that there was no one in her ‘mayka’ (parental house) in a village in Maharashtra. She wanted to know how she could find the names of her (now) deceased parents in the 2003 list. I don’t know what to tell her,” said BLO Koshalya, adding, “I am a diabetic. My sugar level has shot up due to remaining awake the whole night.”
The BLOs said that they were being threatened with suspension unless they met impossible targets. “Even a robot cannot do what we are being told to do,” Jageshwari said, wondering why the exercise needed to be finished in one month.
“SIR is being conducted after a gap of 22 years. Why couldn’t it be completed in three months? Who will be responsible if names of eligible voters are struck off the rolls only because they could not fill the form in time?” she asked.
