BLO in Karnataka threatened to increase SIR progress from 60% to 75% per day or face action

Notices issued by assistant electoral registration officers on Monday asked Booth-level officers to complete 75% of the enumeration by Tuesday or face disciplinary action. | Photo credit: K. MURALI KUMAR

Amid the ongoing Special Intensive Review (SIR), stall level officers (BLOs) in Karnataka said they are receiving notices threatening them with disciplinary action if their progress “does not increase from 60% to 75% in a day.

The notices issued by the Assistant Electoral Registration Office (AERO) on Monday asked BLOs to complete 75% of the enumeration by Tuesday – within a day – or face disciplinary action.

“This is to inform you that you have already been trained on SIR in several meetings. This day’s progress has been checked and you have made less than 60% progress in the polling stations under your jurisdiction. Your progress has been checked every day by the District Collector and the Precinct Electoral Officer and they have raised strong objections that show your carelessness, irresponsibility and dereliction of duty if you do not show up 5% on Tuesday. person and file a report, failure to do so will result in a report being submitted to superiors for disciplinary action against you,” the notice said.

The BLOs told The Hindu that while there are claims that training has been imparted through various modes, they are false and the BLOs have not even given clear instructions on the basics of filling the enumeration forms.

“How to digitize, connect voters or even tell whose names to fill in which section. Each one of us gets different instructions. When we speak to our colleagues or department officials, they tell us something different. Our seniors say, ‘Watch YouTube tutorials’. There is no single answer to anything,” the BLO said, arguing that they are working under “unimaginable stress” that is pushing them to steadily increase their numbers with officials.

“The enumeration form requires BLOs to declare that they have verified the details of the 2002 electoral roll. We have not been trained nor do we have enough time to verify all of them because voters need time to fill in the forms and we need time to complete the procedure. Even though the deadline has been extended, officials continue to rush us and ask us to repeatedly call voters to verify their forms earlier without declaring that they need more time while voters are verified so we will be held accountable,” said the BLO, pointing to the daily challenges they face.

“Officials keep pushing us to distribute more forms and digitize more records, but they don’t know the problems people face on the ground. We are the ones who go door to door and people expect us to help them. What are we supposed to do in such a situation?” another BLO asked.

“Is increasing progress by 15% in a single day even possible? And what mistakes will we make if we do?” they asked BLO.

They further pointed out that though they have been instructed to visit voters up to three times, even one or two visits are difficult due to pressure from their seniors as well as Booth Level Agents (BLAs).

“The BLAs are supposed to accompany us as they have been appointed by political parties for this exercise but they are not coming. Instead they are constantly pressuring us so that no one is left out and no problems arise. We have written to officials at various levels to highlight the challenges but no one paid attention,” the BLOs added.

Published – 20 Jul 2026 22:17 IST