House checks in last round, BLOs, voters race towards Thurs deadline
Times of India | 10 December 2025
Kolkata: BLOs, racing against time to meet the Thursday SIR deadline, managed to complete 99.7% digitisation of forms by Tuesday afternoon though 10,000 forms still lay undistributed across Bengal.
The election roll observer (ERO) for Kolkata South and South 24 Parganas, C Murugan, along with other election officials, paid a visit to a few houses in Part No. 30 on Tuesday to verify voters' data mentioned in their SIR forms. During the check, it turned out, the observer came across multiple errors. "You are an educated person, how can there be so many mistakes?" Murugan was heard telling the BLO. "None of the other booths here faced such problems. Why are these mistakes happening?" Pointing out he would visit the area on Dec 11, Murugan instructed the BLO observer to review all forms and ensure they were completed correctly. He added all the findings from the visit would be reported to the EC.
He also questioned the BLO why 105 out of the 720 forms allotted to the area were not yet distributed. "The BLO was asked about the reason behind the 105 forms not being given out, if those voters had moved elsewhere and about the information uploaded on the EC portal," said an official.
BLOs, too, visited some homes on Tuesday, mostly those of dead voters, to verify their families' claim. They also knocked on the doors of elderly citizens, especially those above 85 years. "In the last lap, the commission has told us to verify information of elderly citizens and deceased voters. As it's the BLOs who will be held responsible for any discrepancy, I have devoted the last two days to checking dead voters' and octogenarians' data," said a BLO in south Kolkata.
There were several voters, who had failed to complete their SIR forms, and sought BLOs' help at the last moment. Tapas Das from Palbazar said, "My form was sent back by the AERO as the photo was old. As I was away in Pune, I could hand the new photo to the BLO only on Tuesday."
A BLO in Beleghata, Dola Dutta, said, "The EC has said no eligible voter should be left out and no ineligible voter included. So my focus is now on the ASDD (absentee, shifted, dead and duplicate) category."
The day did not go without protests. The BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee staged a sit-in near the office of chief electoral officer, Bengal, with an ambulance nearby. Inside was an BLO, Debashis Das from Namkhana, who was released from SSKM after 10 days of treatment. The protesters sought Rs 15 lakh as compensation for Das.