CHENNAI: The BLO App of the Election Commission of India (ECI), which served as the primary and only tool for the Booth-Level Officers (BLO), to carry out every aspect of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, saw at least 31 new versions since the exercise began in three union territories and nine states, including Tamil Nadu, on October 27, 2025.
According to many officials TNIE spoke to, ECI reportedly did not issue detailed written instructions on SIR, besides the initial communication sent on October 27, which had a three-page letter, along with a 21-page communication from Bihar SIR and some annexures.
This resulted in heavy reliance on the BLO App, not only to carry out the tasks, but also to understand how the tasks should be done. “The options available on the BLO App informed us what is permitted and what is not rather than detailed instructions or training material regarding the process or the use of the app,” a district-level official said.
An ECI document accessed by TNIE said the app — available in Android and iOS versions — covered entire range of BLO’s functions, from house-to-house verification, uploading relevant information based on field verification and capturing GPS co-ordinates and photos of polling stations.
“The functionality was quite complicated for the BLOs since many are not well-educated or acquainted with such apps. The regular updates made it worse,” said an Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) from one of the northern districts of TN.
TNIE’s analysis of iOS and Android version logs showed that the Android version underwent 31 updates between November 13 (version 8.65) and January 20 (9.10), which is at an average of a new version released every second day.
The iOS version saw 25 new releases between December 2 (version 2.31) and January 22 (2.56). The change logs showed functionality upgrades, changes and fixes. For instance, the change mentioned for Android version 8.85 released on December 3, when enumeration phase was in final stages, was “Added view mobile number with call facility in Enumeration Form”. Version 8.84, released a day before, said “Enables mark uncollectable in verify and re-verify option”. There were at least four instances of back-to-back releases within 24-48 hours.
Acknowledging regular updates, an ERO said, “These updates were discussed in the head office during meetings with BLOs and BLAs. When any BLO or BLA was unable to attend a meeting, the information was conveyed to them by EROs or AEROs,” adding that no user-manuals were provided for the updates.
A BLO from Chennai told TNIE that her phone couldn’t handle the application and frequently froze, leading to loss of data or redoing of completed work. An IAS officer, who was earlier with Tamil Nadu eGovernance Agency, said such updates raised concerns over the functional stability and integrity of the application.