CHENNAI: Saravanan (name changed), a domestic breeding checker for mosquito control operations in the Greater Chennai Corporation, did not have formal education beyond Class 5 and has never used a smartphone. Despite his many protests, he was made booth-level officer (BLO) during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Election Commission of India in Tamil Nadu.
Saravanan was posted in a Chennai constituency which saw a 40% drop in voters in the draft SIR rolls. He told TNIE he knew the work during the “simpler” annual special summary revision, but added that SIR was complicated and executed in short time.
“I repeatedly told my supervisor that I don’t even know how to read properly, but they said there was no other option and convinced me to continue. I know nothing about smartphones and managed to complete the enumeration only with my colleagues, who assisted me in uploading the forms on the BLO app,” he said.
Many BLOs, who made up the frontline of the SIR exercise said they were under immense pressure due to last-minute directives, lack of clear instructions, frequent updates to the BLO app, repeated changes in the method of processing forms, and added burden of balancing their regular non-SIR work.
When the enumeration began on November 4, BLOs were called in for training only that morning, multiple BLOs told TNIE, leaving them little time to understand the process.
Moreover, the BLOs had to rely on their own mobile phones, which in many cases proved to be low-end and ill-equipped for the process — they frequently froze, unable to handle the overload.
“Neither our phones nor us could handle the stress,” said Shanthi (name changed), a BLO from the Harbour constituency.
“I used to work as a field-level staff, enumerating differently-abled persons by making door-to-door visits to ensure they receive welfare benefits, and was paid `11,500/month. However, once the SIR process began, I could no longer do that, and had to forego that income. On top of that, my phone is completely ruined after the process,” she added.
Another BLO from the Thousand Lights constituency said, “The day after the draft rolls were released, our superiors yelled at us, asking why so many residents had been marked shifted in my booth. How can we be responsible for that?” This indicates that officials couldn’t efficiently monitor the quantum of deletions until the draft rolls got released.
Towards the end of the enumeration, the pressure was so high that in a few booths, college students were roped in to help. Some BLOs and BLAs that TNIE spoke to alleged that bundles of forms went missing in their booths when the students took it home for uploading, leading to arbitrary deletions.
The login credentials of BLOs were shared with college students, raising serious doubts over integrity of the process. “Students were paid around Rs 1,000 a day to upload the form details using the BLO app. They would call us at 1, 2 and even 3 am, asking for OTPs. We went through sleepless nights, unable to even focus on basic household chores. It felt like 24-hour duty. But which form was uploaded under which category is something only those students know,” another BLO said.
She said this was largely because, although BLOs were instructed to distribute the forms, they were asked to begin collecting them only after two weeks. By that time, large number of forms had accumulated. When they attempted to upload all the details into the app at once, it glitched. Moreover, when the ECI announced that voters could submit forms even without mapping details from the previous SIR rolls, BLOs were still asked to fill in those details themselves, adding to their workload.
With many TNUHDB tenements lacking functional lifts, and with no lifts at all in some private apartments, BLOs had no option but to climb multiple flights of stairs to verify voters. A BLO from Thousand Lights said, “I visited a private apartment in my booth at least seven times searching for voters in the electoral roll, but I could not find them or reach them over phone.”
A senior official from the elections department in Chennai said training was provided and only those who had earlier worked as BLOs were largely used in the process. However, the official acknowledged that the time provided was inadequate.
Key issues faced
Inadequate training provided to BLOs
Time-to-time updates, especially on the BLO mobile app, confused the BLOs
Insufficient timeframe
Reliance on own mobile devices, which were often ill-equipped
BLOs held accountable for deletions which were out of their control
College students being roped in for work risking proper accountability
Missing bundles of filled enumeration forms in some of the booths
(With inputs from Seyamla L @ Chennai)