Process of vital details inclusion in electoral rolls in Assam gains momentum

Guwahati: The process of vital details inclusion in electoral rolls in Assam has gathered momentum. The Election Commission of India has asked the Booth Level officers (BLO) to affix house numbers with the voters. There are voters where the house number is not there.

Preparation is on to start Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Assam. Assam is going to assembly polls early next year.

A BLO who does not want to be identified said, “We are asked to visit the voters whose house number is not there. We need to collect the house number and submit the list.”


He added, “We are also asked to compile a list of people aged over 100 years or above and a list of houses having 10 or more voters.”

Newly appointed BLOs have undergone a couple of rounds of training.


A BLO told ET, “We are asked to work for the revision after school hours. In the training session, there were talks of SIR and BLO forms. In case of new voters, we are made aware of the documents we should seek like birth certificate, photograph, parent’s voters identity card and address proof. For deletion, we were suggested to look for death certificates.”

Assam Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anurag Goel has issued instructions to all district election officers (DEOs) to ensure immediate preparedness.

In a directive dated August 4, the CEO stressed that all electoral registration officers (EROs), assistant EROs (AEROs) and booth-level officers (BLOs) must be in position before the SIR schedule is declared. Additional BLOs for newly created polling stations post-rationalisation should be identified in advance, ready for appointment once ECI approval is secured.

The order instructed that election staff and data entry operators should not be given additional duties during the SIR process, and that Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) districts must not divert these personnel for BTC elections, instead they need to arrange alternative manpower.

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma while supporting the SIR had recently stated “In Assam’s char areas (riverine) and some other places even dead people’s names are there in the voters’ list in large numbers. They do not delete it. Even married daughters’ names are there. The voting percentage in these areas is around 100%.”

He had said, “Once SIR comes and the voters’ list is linked with Aadhaar, this problem will be solved.”

Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Assam took place in 2005. Taking that into effect, the state Election Department has made the 2005 Electoral Roll of the state public on its website.

Assam’s electoral rolls had an intensive revision in 1997 when the ECI, for the first time, tagged some voters in the state as ‘doubtful’ or ‘D voters. D-Voter is unique to Assam. There is a total of 94,477 D voters in Assam.

Doubtful voter’, is a category of voters in Assam who are disenfranchised for lack of citizenship credentials and barred from contesting elections and casting their votes.