THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Despite alleging large-scale exclusion of voters during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, not a single application relating to claims and objections to the draft voter list for the 2026 assembly election has been filed by Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of political parties more than a week after the roll was published.
BLAs appointed by political parties are empowered to collect Form 6 for claims and Form 7 for objections to the draft electoral roll from the public.
They can file these forms directly along with the prescribed declaration. However, no such application has been filed by the 60,061 BLAs appointed by the six national and six state parties in the state as of December 31, according to data from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO)-Kerala.
“Generic complaints from BLAs, without the prescribed forms or declaration are not officially counted as claims or objections,” CEO-Kerala Rathan U Kelkar clarified.
However, citizens had applied on their own for fresh enrolment and also to register their claims and objections to the draft roll, the official said. Of these, majority of the forms were filed online, he added.
Meanwhile, the total number of Form 6 filed by residents in the state for raising claims to the draft roll and also for fresh enrolment was nearing 77,000 as of December 31. An additional 21,000 overseas residents had filed Form 6A for claims and also for fresh enrolment in the voters list.
The data also showed that 375 applications were filed by citizens for exclusion of ineligible electors from the draft electoral roll. Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) are also examining the pending 3.72 lakh Form 6 and 32,925 Form 6A (overseas) received before the publication of the draft voters list. “These names will be included in the final electoral roll on February 21 on receipt of the prescribed declaration,” officials said.