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Bhopal, Nov 4 (IANS) The much-hyped Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process for verification of voter lists by the Election Commission of India (ECI) officially began in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday.
After receiving training, more than 65,000 BLOs (Booth Level Officers), who have been assigned the task of going door-to-door for voter verification, have started reaching their assigned booths.
Madhya Pradesh has a total of 230 assembly seats and 29 Lok Sabha constituencies spread over 55 districts divided into six divisions namely Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, Jabalpur, Chambal, Narmadapuram, Rewa, Sagar, Shahdol and Ujjain.
The voter list in Madhya Pradesh was already frozen after the SIR was announced in the state by the ECI on October 27, which means no new changes can be made without verification from the ECI-appointed BLO.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjeev Jha has directed district collectors, commissioners and other senior officials to closely monitor the SIR process and ensure that not a single eligible voter is left out of verification.
Sanjeev Jha shared that BLOs will not ask for any documents from eligible voters; They are expected to simply distribute the forms and record the information obtained during the door-to-door visits.
However, the CEO also clarified that BLOs will collect documents only if the voter’s record does not match with the earlier database. In such cases, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) will issue a notice asking for the documents separately.
Meanwhile, political parties, especially the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress, have also formed their own teams to keep a close watch on the exercise in Madhya Pradesh.
The state Congress has formed an eight-member committee, with former minister Sajjan Singh Verma as the chairman and seven members, including JP Dhanopia, Sanjay Kale, Rajeev Singh and Shailendra Patel.
On the other hand, the state BJP was scheduled to organize a camp on Tuesday to provide training to party workers appointed for the work for SIR. State BJP President Hemant Khandelwal and Joint National Secretary will address the training session at the party headquarters in Bhopal.
Notably, ECI has announced the second phase of SIR in 12 states and union territories. Apart from Madhya Pradesh, the 11 states and union territories are Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
The first phase of SIR was conducted in Bihar, after which more than 68 lakh names were removed from the voter list.
–IANS
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