In yet another major effort to enroll maximum eligible voters’ in the electoral list, the Ranchi district administration organised a special voters’ camp at all the demarcated polling centres on Sunday. After taking stringent action against the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) for their lackluster attitude during the special camps on March 1 and 2, the response of BLOs and presence of public at the polling booths was quite encouraging.
In accordance to the district administration’s record, so far, during the special camps, as many as 5,000 eligible voters have been added in the electoral list. The Ranchi district has 2,695 polling booths while 21,25,782 electors are there in Ranchi constituency as on February 6, 2019.
“The BLOs were present for aiding the eligible voters’ at the polling stations. The response of the public was quite good on Sunday in comparison to the other days. Approximately, 2,000 voters’ have enrolled their names or have contacted the BLOs for any other rectification work. A minor complaint was reported from Doranda Polling Station,” said Ranchi District Officer (PR), Prabhat Shankar.
As per the orders, the BLOs are expected to stay at polling stations with voter lists during the special camps. A request to ensure the presence of booth level agent of political parties has been made mandatory. However, earlier, absence of BLOs at different polling booths during the special voters’ camp had created much inconvenience for the voters.
The communiqué issued by Ranchi District Administration on March 1 suggested that the applications forms have been made available to the BLOs and all rectification work will be carried out free of cost. Also, the special camps organised from 10 AM onwards to 5 PM has made the presence of BLOs including other staffs at each polling booths obligatory.
“All BLOs will be present at the polling stations with the final published electoral rolls on the scheduled date. Polling centers will also have a separate voter list so that voters can check their names. The ECI has also been asked to publicly read out the voter list. The BLO will submit the verification report to the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) by making physical verification as soon as possible. All received applications for rectification will be disposed till March 7, 2019,” the communiqué of Ranchi district administration issued on February 22 read.
“With this, the manual voters’ enrollment and rectification drive comes to end. Public can now only apply through online mode till April 9, 2019 for enrollment or any rectification. Awareness drive will continue at the polling booths,” Shankar added.
Besides, on Sunday, all sector magistrates inspected the allocated polling stations to know the status of the initiatives taken under the ‘Know Your Booth’ programme. “All sector magistrates were told to conduct inspection of at least 10 polling stations.
Voters were sensitised on various aspects at the respective polling booths,” Shankar further added. Also, materials like pamphlets, posters, audio-video tools will be distributed at the ‘Pragya Kendras’ to create awareness among the voters’ soon.