Pune: When a BLO in Pune’s Ambegaon assembly constituency tried tracing a woman voter whose surname had changed after marriage and whose address in the 2002 electoral roll no longer matched her present residence, the official expected help from the party-appointed booth-level agent. Instead, the BLO said neighbours and local residents helped locate the family.Similar experiences have been reported by several BLOs across Maharashtra who said SIR legwork could have been less taxing if political parties and their BLAs had pitched in.The state has 3,29,919 BLAs for 1,00,253 polling stations, with BJP accounting for the largest share at 94,888, followed by Shiv Sena with 69,163, Congress with 52,543, Shiv Sena (UBT) with 43,989, NCP (SP) with 26,102 and NCP with 17,425 agents.BLAs can trace voters who have moved, locate houses with incomplete addresses and identify women whose surnames changed after marriage—issues that have emerged repeatedly during the revision exercise. “Local party workers usually know where families have moved or whether an elector is still residing in the area. But during door-to-door verification, we rarely found BLAs helping us,” a BLO from Pune said.Another BLO from Pimpri Chinchwad said repeated visits to locked houses and tracing absent-shifted-deceased voters consumed much of last month. “Neighbours helped us more than party agents. Had BLAs been more involved, several discrepancies could have been resolved faster,” the official said.The contrast is striking in Pune district. Against 8,417 polling stations, political parties have appointed 27,334 BLAs, including 7,916 from BJP, 6,207 from NCP (SP), 3,866 from Shiv Sena, 3,355 from NCP, 2,778 from Shiv Sena (UBT) and 2,276 from Congress.The highest concentration of BLAs is in Mumbai Suburban (28,746), followed by Pune (27,334), Jalgaon (18,702), Nashik (18,091), Thane (16,766), Ahmednagar (13,456) and Nagpur (13,069).The effectiveness of the state’s largest-ever political booth network is expected to come under greater scrutiny as parties begin challenging additions and deletions after the draft electoral rolls are published.
