Ranchi, March 25 (IANS) Preparations for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list in Jharkhand have been accelerated. Chief Electoral Officer, K. Ravi Kumar, on Wednesday held a review meeting with Deputy Electoral Officers of all districts and directed them to complete the pre-SIR processes in a time-bound manner.

He made it clear that the objective of the entire exercise is to prepare an accurate, transparent, and error-free electoral roll, ensuring that no eligible citizen is left out.

During the review meeting, the Chief Electoral Officer asked officials to expedite the work of pasting stickers containing BLO details on voters’ houses.

These stickers will carry the name, mobile number, and house number of the concerned Booth Level Officer (BLO), enabling voters to contact them directly. This initiative is part of the ongoing door-to-door verification campaign, under which BLOs are visiting each household to get enumeration forms filled.

He also directed that voters whose details could not be mapped from the previous intensive revision list to the current one, can use the “Book a Call” feature on the Election Commission’s ECINet platform to contact their BLO. This step has been taken to make the process of adding or correcting names in the electoral roll easier.

Officials were further instructed to prepare lists of absent, shifted, deceased, and duplicate voters at all polling stations. Special emphasis was laid on including voters registered at old addresses of displaced or demolished houses in the shifted category. Additionally, during house mapping, officials were directed to retain the pre-assigned house numbers and assign notional numbers only when necessary.

Earlier, the Chief Electoral Officer held a meeting with representatives of recognised political parties to share detailed information about the SIR process and sought their cooperation. The Election Commission has also asked political parties to expedite the appointment and training of Booth Level Agents (BLAs) to ensure better coordination with BLOs at the grassroots level.

The Commission further clarified that the lists of absent, shifted, deceased, and duplicate voters will be made public only after verification by political party agents through the BLOs. This step is expected to help remove fake voters and make the electoral roll more reliable.

–IANS

sn/rad