West Burdwan electoral officer sets target for BLOs
The Statesman | 6 November 2025
About 40,000 forms of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls have been distributed by booth level officers (BLOs) in West Burdwan district on the first day yesterday.
District Magistrate and district electoral officer (DEO) S. Ponnambalam, briefing reporters, said the process of distributing enumeration forms had started, along with the entire state. He said 2,504 BLOs have been deployed across the district’s two sub-divisions of Asansol Sadar and Durgapur. The target is to distribute the forms to 23,27,000 voters within the next two days, the official added.
Incidentally, the Election Commission of India officials said this evening that a total of about 84 lakh forms had been distributed throughout the state on the second day today.
The DM explained that each voter is receiving two forms — one has to be filled up and submitted to the BLO, while the second will be signed by the officer and kept by the voter as his/her copy. He said that every booth will make full efforts for distribution, and booth level agents (BLAs) of all the registered political parties may also accompany the BLOs during this entire SIR process.
Giving details of the first day’s progress, the district magistrate further said that the number of forms distributed on the first day would increase, once the data entry is completed. He added that this process will continue for the next one month.
Asked if there were any irregularities reported during the first day, he replied that no incident had been reported so far. However, if any issue arises, the administration is fully prepared to handle it.
“Any complaints or problems related to the SIR exercise can be resolved by calling the helpline number 1950. In addition, help desks have been set up at the West Burdwan district magistrate’s office, Asansol Sadar and Durgapur SDO offices, and all the BDO offices. Anyone having doubts or queries about the process can contact these help desks,” the DM said.
State panchayat minister and MLA of Durgapur East, Pradip Majumdar, himself was found helping some voters fill up the forms at his office in Durgapur. The filled up forms have to be returned to the BLOs during their second visit to the voters’ homes.
A whiff of a controversy occurred when Lakshman Ghorui, BJP leader and MLA of Durgapur West, alleged that TMC leaders have already started to create pressure amongst the voters by sending a TMC ward president along with the BLO, despite the party’s BLA already accompanying him. The incident he was complaining about referred to Ward 25, where TMC ward president Bappa Roy joined the BLO, Rinku Poddar, and the TMC BLA, Manas Banerjee. Roy later left the ward, stemming the controversy. There was no BLA from the BJP’s side.