With the general elections round the corner and discrepancies reported by voters in the photo-electoral rolls for the Assembly elections held in November last year, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed a revision of electoral rolls prepared by the Delhi Electoral office.

As part of the initiative, the ECI has also decided to appoint Booth Level Agents (BLAs) by recognised political parties for each polling booth to assist in the correction of the draft rolls.

According to the Chief Electoral Officer, Satinder Silas Bedi, grassroots-level workers of recognised political parties will be allowed to help in the scrutiny of electoral rolls to ensure accuracy.

“The BLA will be allowed to interact with voters and help them correct details by filling up relevant forms. They will not be officially allowed to receive any complaints from voters but can update the list through their door-to-door surveys and submit them to the Block Level Officers (BLO),” she said. These BLAs will be given identity cards issued by political parties. Meanwhile, the department has published draft photo electoral rolls of all 70 Assembly constituencies and voters can file in their corrections and objections by January 27 and the final electoral rolls will be published by February 10.

“Electoral rolls are being displayed at 1,400 different locations for all constituencies. The information is available on our website. Voters can go and check their details and fill up the relevant forms in case errors are detected,” Bedi said.

The forms are — Form-6 for inclusion of name in the electoral roll, Form-7 for deletion of name, Form-8 for correction in the entry , Form-8A for transposition of entry and Form 001B/001A for submitting photographs for preparation of Voter Identity Card. These forms can be filled online as well, she said, adding that the department will not accept forms submitted in bulk.

As reported earlier, while the department had claimed to have made nearly 80 per cent Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) for the 1.07 crore-strong voting population in Delhi, errors reported during the Assembly election include the mismatch of photographs and important details like name and age of the voter.