Confusion in voter list? Call your Booth Level Officers

Names, contact numbers of BLOs painted at every polling booth

By M.T. Yogesh Kumar

Mysore/Mysuru: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has taken several innovative steps to ensure 100 percent transparency in voting during the Legislative Assembly elections scheduled on May 10.

For the first time, the name and mobile phone numbers of the Booth Level Officer (BLO) is being made public by writing the said information and other details on the walls of respective Polling Booths across the city and district. It is to ensure that there would be no confusion on the day of voting and the polling process is conducted in a fool-proof manner.

The Karnataka elections have garnered nation-wide attention and the ECI has been making consistent arrangements to conduct the elections without giving room for any complaints. To achieve cent percent voting by encouraging voters, several awareness measures are being taken, besides enrolling the voters, revising electoral roll and other measures.

Following the instructions of the Deputy Commissioner Dr. K.V. Rajendra, who is also the District Electoral Officer, the works on writing the name and mobile phone numbers of respective BLOs on the walls of all polling booths is underway at all the Polling Stations. In the previous elections, there were many confusions with the names of voters missing from the voter list.

Due to change in polling booths, several voters returned without voting while several others, unable to get the required details related to the booths where they can cast their vote, were not even stepping out of their house. This had resulted in less voting percentage, especially in urban areas.

Avoiding confusion

To avoid all such anomalies, measures have been taken to inform the voters even a month before the State goes to elections. Though the display of the names of polling officers and their phone numbers cannot be termed as one-stop solution for all the grievances, it can at least prevent voters from refraining from polling due to minor confusions, said sources.

The aforementioned details, along with the name of the respective Assembly Constituency, Part Number, Booth Number, are being written at all the polling stations in both urban and rural limits. The voters can contact respective BLOs and get confirmation about their names in the voter list.

They can also seek guidance from the officer over inclusion of name in the voter list within stipulated period or making corrections if any in the Voter ID. Likewise, the very step will be fruitful in redressing grievances related to voting.

Prema Bodhi, a resident of Kuvempunagar, said: “It is a welcome step to provide the name and cell phone number of respective polling officers. Urban voters were facing severe problems on the voting day as during the previous elections, the names of voters who had exercised their franchise in earlier elections were missing from the voter list. It was also difficult to find the name in the voter list and also details related to polling stations. Due all these confusions, some aged voters were averse to vote. Now, we have got an opportunity to contact the polling officer and confirm the available details.”