Mixed bag for BLOs: Some scared, stay indoors, others pitch in to help neighbourhood voters
Times of India | 1 March 2026
Kolkata: After four months of extensive exercise for SIR of electoral roll, the BLOs got to know their results, counting the electors whose names remained on the list and those deleted and marked ‘under adjudication'. Some BLOs, on the tenterhooks following repeated calls from their anxious electors, confined themselves indoors. The rest, despite the anxiety, chose to step out and help voters check their names on the roll. They also assured the ‘deleted' voters that they would try their best to get their names back on list.
Till afternoon, the BLOs and their supervisors, including AEROs across the city, mostly remained in the dark about the electoral roll. Some of them thought that they would get the list of their respective parts at the booths, while some others spent the whole afternoon at Jessop Building and Survey Building, waiting for the list, which reached them only in the evening. Some BLOs decided to put up the lists at their respective booths at night, while others stated that they would display the lists on Sunday morning.
A BLO in Maniktala rued, "If we were given the list in the daytime, we could have put it up at the booth. I received it at Jessop Building in the evening and started calling the electors who rang me throughout the day. Even if I put up the list at the booth at night, how many will turn up to check it?"
Arkadeb Bhattacharya, an AERO from Maniktala, said, "BLOs asked me when they will get the lists, and it seemed that they had a lot of confusion about the matter. I later decided to turn up at Jessop Building."
On Saturday, the BLOs, who were equally anxious as their electors, woke up early in the morning, and their phones kept ringing throughout the day as none had any clarity about the venue and the time for publication of the final list. Sumedha Bhattacharya, a BLO from Shyampukur, said, "Worried about the fate of my electors, I woke up as early as 5 am today. Like others, I knew that the list would be brought out today, but I started my day without any clue about how things would go. As the day progressed, people started calling me. I guided them to the website where the list was to be uploaded. I went to Jessop Building and later spent the entire day at my centre, Ganabhavan."
Manasi Guha, a BLO from Behala, waited for the list at Survey Building, Alipore, throughout the day and received it in the evening. "Tired of taking calls from electors, I did not venture out of home, thinking that more people would gather around me to know about their status on the electoral roll. In the afternoon, I came to the Survey Building to collect the list, which was handed over to me in the evening."