Only 42.53%: Delhi CEO flags ‘very low’ electoral roll mapping amid migration, locked homes

Responding to a question by The Indian Express, Delhi CEO Ashok Kumar said, “Mapping levels are very low, because Delhi is highly urban. Since there is a lot of migration, a lot of people don’t know their details.”

“A lot of people are working and so are unavailable when the BLOs visit their homes during the day. This is a big difficulty we face: the BLO has visited, but did not find anyone at home,” he added.

Even in March, the CEO office, in a letter, had said that progress of the preparatory exercise in Delhi has been slow so far, with only about 30% of the required “mapping” exercise completed at the time. The office had asked government departments to ensure that teachers and other officials deployed as BLOs were not assigned additional duties after office hours so they could carry out revision-related field work.

The CEO office said the exercise aims to ensure that “no eligible citizen is left out while no ineligible person is included in the electoral roll”.

According to data shared by the CEO office, Delhi currently has 13,033 polling stations, while political parties so far have appointed 29,759 booth level agents.

During the house-to-house visits beginning June 30, every existing elector whose name appears in the electoral roll will receive an enumeration form through BLOs. They would be required to fill the form and return it. If a house is found locked during verification, BLOs will leave the forms and make at least three visits to collect the filled forms. Where forms are not returned, BLOs may identify probable reasons such as absence, shifting, death or duplicate registration based on local inquiry.

In Delhi, the draft electoral roll will be published on August 5, following which claims and objections can be filed till September 4. Disposal of claims and objections will continue till October 3, while the final electoral roll is slated to be published on October 7.