‘Upload what they give’: eros claims pressure to clear SIR notices without hearing

As on October 5, just days before the deadline, at least 39,169 notices remained to be served across the state, while 7,82,304 hearings remained. | Photo credit: ALLEN EGENUSE J.

“There is constant pressure every day to show that 100% of the hearings have been completed before the deadline. (Officials) say upload Aadhaar card, PAN card, whatever they give but they complete the process. How unfair is this to those whose documents we rejected earlier just because they initially produced Aadhaar card?” asked Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (SIR Intensive) (SIR) with describing how the instructions for special officers had changed to now put pressure on them to complete hearings before the deadline, even “without conducting a hearing”.

With the number of pending hearings running into the thousands days before the deadline, eros said they were being pressured to delete notices even when they knew the voter did not live at a particular address to avoid automatic generation of Form 7 deletion requests.

As on October 5, just days before the deadline, at least 39,169 notices remained to be served across the state, while 7,82,304 hearings remained. Of this, more than 4.24 lakh were concentrated in Bengaluru alone. The pressure to clear the backlog, eros said, has also changed the way documents are collected and verified. On September 26, the Election Commission of India (ECI) ordered Booth Level Officials (BLOs) to visit households and collect documents for hearings, saying there would be no physical hearings, but eros said BLOs mostly did not visit homes.

“The BLOs may have visited a few areas or houses, but mostly they called people and asked them to come to the polling station and present their Aadhaar and PAN cards. They (BLOs) also give us the documents that many have collected during the counting phase,” AERO said. The officer added that verbal instructions were repeatedly given not to leave any voters and not to include voters even if they were not found at a particular address when the BLOs visited to verify their details.

“If a person is not reached at a particular address or if we don’t upload any document, a Form 7 is automatically generated against their name and we are strictly told to avoid it. Some officials have told us to upload a photo with anyone like a neighbor if the voter is not available, just to avoid Form 7 and complete the process,” AERO added.

However, this was contrary to the Chief Electoral Officer’s repeated instructions that no documents needed to be submitted at the enumeration stage, which involved only filling of enumeration forms. The hearing on the notices began on September 5, ten days after the scheduled date in Bengaluru. The process involved 43.43 million notices issued due to logical inconsistencies and lack of mapping. Although the official timeline puts the end of the “announcement phase” on October 22, the CEO’s office insisted that the hearings must be completed by October 12. Eros said they were under pressure to finish even earlier, especially in areas like CV Raman Nagar, Yeshwanthpur and Bommanahalli where the number of notifications was higher.

“Initially, we were told to accept documents only as per the prescribed list along with Aadhaar. So many people were sent back and their documents were uploaded later when they got one of the 11 accepted documents, such as a permanent residence certificate or a land certificate. But most people never came back because they had nothing to provide. Now everything is accepted,” AERO said. The officer added that when it was raised in meetings, officials said it was not a concern as such people could be included during the special drive.

BLOs, meanwhile, told The Hindu that though they tried to cover their allotted households, the residents mostly asked them to return at specific times while many did not respond when contacted. “Moreover, the Booth Level Agents (BLAs), who were working with us till recently, have stopped helping us after several FIRs were filed against the BLA for Form 7 applications,” the BLO said.

Published – 12 Oct 2026 0:21 AM IST