BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday sought a response from the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a public interest litigation challenging the deployment of the Anganwadi workers as Booth Level Officers (BLOs).
A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice K S Hemalekha passed the order after hearing the public interest litigation filed by the state committee of Karnataka State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union, Davanagere.
Advocate Umapathi S on behalf of the petitioner contended that the appointment of Anganwadi workers as BLOs, including for Special Intensive Revision (SIR), has serious consequences. First, it disrupts the delivery of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and early childhood services to women and children. Second, it imposes onerous election duties on workers who are already burdened with welfare functions. Third, in the present electoral climate, BLO duties are no longer routine clerical functions; they involve sensitive field verification, house-to-house enumeration, scrutiny support, and data handling intimately connected with electoral roll fidelity, the petitioner claimed.
The petitioner narrated that the court was approached to prevent the diversion of Anganwadi workers from their core statutory and welfare functions to BLO duties as a matter of routine, contrary to the governing instructions of the ECI and contrary to the administrative position already taken within the state.
It was stated in the petition that the ECI has issued comprehensive instructions governing the appointment of BLOs. Those instructions recognise a hierarchical structure in appointment. The more recent instruction dated June 5, 2025, specifically mandates that BLOs shall be appointed, in the first instance, from among Group C and above regular serving employees of state or local government enrolled in the concerned parts.
Only in the absence of such regular employees may the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) appoint Anganwadi workers, contract teachers, or central government employees, and even then only upon the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) obtaining a non-availability certificate signed by the ERO and countersigned by the District Election Officer (DEO).
The record further shows that the Department of Women and Child Development of the state had already addressed a communication dated March 17, 2022 requesting that Anganwadi workers should not be deployed for election-related work. The CEO, Karnataka, by communication dated April 14, 2022, directed DEOs to appoint BLOs according to the categories prescribed in the Manual on Electoral Roll. Despite this, appointment orders have been issued in Karnataka appointing Anganwadi teachers/workers as BLOs.
Such appointments are not legally sustainable when they are made mechanically, as a first option, or without strict compliance with the condition precedent of non-availability of regular state or local government employees, the petitioner alleged.