Forms collected but not returned: BLOs at wit’s end
Times of India | 1 December 2025
Kolkata: Even as the Election Commission of India (ECI) extended the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) schedule by a week, booth level officers (BLOs) across Bengal say a new crisis is compounding their workload — a growing number of voters are refusing to return filled-up enumeration forms, forcing BLOs to close days of fieldwork with large batches marked as "not found".
Across districts, BLOs say the problem escalated in the past fortnight, adding pressure to an already stretched revision exercise. Many complain they are ending each day with dozens of incomplete entries.
"There are a total of 850 voters in my booth. Of them, seven never returned forms. I visited their homes on multiple occasions but to no avail. I uploaded data for the remaining 843 with these seven as ‘not found'," said BLO Numan Naskar from Amdanga in North 24 Parganas.
Subhadeep Ghosh, a BLO from Maheshtala who completed distribution, collection, and digital submission of forms by last week, said he too couldn't collect forms from seven voters. Ghosh said there are 799 voters in his allotted Part 225 under the Maheshtala assembly constituency. "Seven did not submit their forms and are untraceable. They frequently shift between here and their homes in Bihar and have been non-cooperative since the beginning. I closed the file marking them as untraceable," he said.
Somen Seal, a BLO in Shyampukur, completed over 90% of the work, but faced trouble as some voters did not return their forms. "There are some voters who have set their target to return their forms on Dec 4. Some in my area went to other states along with the enumeration forms, and I failed to reach out to them. Hence, the entire process has been delayed."
Another BLO, who wanted to remain anonymous, stated that in the Sovabazar area, "The form distribution went smoothly, but trouble started when we began collecting forms. Majority of voters helped me by handing over forms on time, but 16 forms are untraceable as the family where I distributed forms is now locked. I visited at least four times, but no one was found there. Neighbours are unable to say anything about them. In that case, with a note saying ‘not found', I will close down the process as it's impossible to wait for them for an indefinite period."