SIR 2.0 | Challenges and confusion mark enumeration process in Chennai

Booth Level Officers (BLO) struggle to digitise the filled Enumeration Forms (EF) as the deadline fast approaches.

Chennai: A Shankar and his daughter, S Sharmila, were given the Enumeration Form (EF) as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls on November 11. For over a week, they stared at the form due to the lack of details regarding the SIR conducted in 2005 – the family has moved houses twice in the past two decades within Taramani, a locality in South Chennai.

Shankar could not identify the booth where he cast his vote in 2005, as his area now falls under the Velachery assembly segment (which was carved out of Tambaram) after constituencies were redrawn in 2011.

Only on November 19 did he receive the details with the help of Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of political parties who patiently searched through the voluminous voters’ list from 2005 for the locality.

“Once we had the details, the form was filled within five minutes. I am relieved now as I know the EF won’t be rejected. I wouldn’t have filled the EF without help. The form is very tough to fill,” Shankar told DH.

DH’s visit to half a dozen assembly constituencies in Chennai showed that many electors are confused about whether they should fill in Part (B) and Part (C) of the form—these require details of the Elector in the electoral roll of the last SIR (if applicable), and details of the relative whose name is listed in the previous column.

BLOs documenting enumeration of voters.    

‘No clarity on the process’

Listen to P Mani (71) from Teynampet, who almost decided not to fill the EF, and Tambaram resident, 34-year-old Sumathi, who is unable to locate her parents' 2005 SIR details for the past three weeks.

“My father’s documents are with my brother in Vellore, and we are not on speaking terms. Hence, I decided to skip it. But when I checked with my BLO, he said since my name was in the 2005 SIR, I didn’t have to furnish such details. There is no clarity. If I hadn’t bothered to check, I would have lost my vote,” Mani said.

Lakshmi asked how she could expect her father, now 83, to remember details of where he voted in 2005, since searching online is unreliable. “I fear we will lose our vote, like many are believed to have in Bihar,” she said.

There are also others, like 67-year-old Ganesh from upmarket Adyar, who was forced to hand over the EF physically after his multiple attempts to submit it online failed.

“What is the need to ask for details of the 2005 SIR when I have been living in the same area since the 1980s? I don’t understand the motive behind this exercise. This is pure harassment,” Ganesh told DH.

Digitization of EFs progressing at slow pace

From Taramani to Kottivakkam, Tambaram, Adyar, Teynampet, Mylapore, Royapettah, to Triplicane – the story is the same across Chennai, as millions of people continue to struggle to collect EFs and fill the forms accurately to avoid being disenfranchised – even almost three weeks after the exercise began on November 4.

Confusion prevails on the ground, with many still not receiving the form, even as the Election Commission says forms have been distributed to 95.16 percent of voters. However, only about 24 percent of the forms distributed have been digitized as of November 20, with just two weeks to go before the last date.

This DH correspondent found heaps of forms lying with over a dozen BLOs, either due to the death of voters or because their houses were locked.

The struggles of BLOs

BLOs also lack clarity on the process, as they were not adequately trained for the exercise, which is an additional responsibility alongside their regular work. Moreover, they are overburdened and are forced to use their own smartphones to find EPIC details and scan the filled EFs, consuming much of their time, with many literally burning the midnight oil.

BLOs documenting enumerations.

A BLO explained that many voters have left the two parts blank, further increasing their workload. “We now have to go through the 2005 voters list and fill in the details before scanning them. Since their mobile numbers are listed in the form, we have to call them. If we don’t, the application may be rejected. Also, uploading the EFs takes a lot of time,” the BLO said.

The woes of people living in areas like Sholinganallur, Perungudi, Pallikaranai, and Medavakkam – which developed largely after 2005 due to the IT boom – are altogether different, with even BLOs and resident welfare associations struggling to find old EPIC numbers.

“It is extremely tough to locate houses in apartments and distribute forms. Some apartment associations have eased our burden by organizing camps, but some are non-cooperative,” a BLO from Saidapet said.

The BLOs also get caught in rivalry between the DMK and AIADMK, whose BLAs object to their actions of handing over EFs to relatives of people who might not live in Chennai but come to vote. However, the BLOs also acknowledge that the BLAs have been extremely helpful in filling EFs and spreading the word about the election help desk.

“Several houses in urban areas are locked during the daytime. We have to keep their applications with us since we don’t know whether they have shifted or still live there. We have to find a middle path. I can’t remove the person just because he doesn’t live here. He might have voted only in this booth all his life,” another BLO in Royapettah said.

Election help desks

Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has set up Election Help Desks at 941 booths in the city to help voters fill their EFs from November 18. Though the help desks have eased some difficulties for electors and BLOs, the picture is not rosy yet.

“If the camps had been organized from Day One, we would have completed half the work by now. People struggle to fill the form, and we now help them. It took over a week even for us to understand the process. We were given only two days of training and not everyone has a fast smartphone,” a BLO told DH on condition of anonymity.

BLOs – who struggled for two weeks to walk long distances to distribute EFs – are now partly relieved but remain worried about the workload, since they now receive 50 to 100 forms a day, compared to five to ten before the camps. “We don’t know how we will scan all the EFs and send them on time,” a BLO in Teynampet said.

Prasanth, a BLO in Adyar, said several booths in the locality had at least 50 deletions each due to deaths. “The camp is helpful in that people whose houses were locked have come asking for forms. One family member gets the forms signed and gives them to us. But now the pressure is on us to scan and upload them every day,” he said.