Haryana CEO launches three-day drive to clear pending SIR notices

The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Haryana, has launched a special three-day drive to dispose of pending notices issued to voters under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, with special camps and house-to-house collection of documents being undertaken from October 7 to 9 at polling stations where documents are still awaited.

As part of the drive, 57,339 pending hearing cases were disposed on October 7 and 8, reducing the number of cases awaiting hearings to 2,85,834 of the total notices generated in the State. The disposal of all pending hearings has been targeted by October 28, ahead of publication of the final electoral roll on November 6.

According to the CEO’s office, 44,91,923 notices were generated across Haryana for unmapped cases and other various discrepancies.

BLOs overworked

A Booth-Level Officer (BLO), who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the notices served on the voters were not received by all BLOs at the same time. “I received 250 notices on August 7, while others got theirs two or three days later. Some had 600, 700, 800 or even 900 notices,” the BLO said. He said that it took him nearly two months to complete the 250 notices, from August 7 to September 30. “If it took me so long to complete 250, those with 800-900 notices will naturally take much longer,” the BLO said, adding that some cases also remained pending as people were reluctant to submit documents during the hearing process. The BLO also flagged difficulties arising from the teachers returning for school and examination duties from October 1.

A woman BLO, who teaches at a government middle school in Sector 14 and requested anonymity, said she had to work until around 6.30 p.m. on several days during the voter-roll revision exercise over the past two months to dispose of the notices. She travelled from Bahadurgarh and often reached home only around 8-8.30 p.m. At her booth, she said, 745 voters remained on the electoral roll after deletions, while 580 were issued notices over various discrepancies. By September 30, 574 of these cases had been disposed of, she said. “For the remaining six voters, I have informed the officer concerned that they are not taking my calls,” she said.

She described the exercise as particularly challenging because many voters were unavailable during daytime, requiring her to visit their homes in the evening. She also cited pressure from senior officials, inadequate workspace and instances of rude behaviour from voters as some of the difficulties faced by her and fellow BLOs.

The strain was also felt inside schools. Rajbala, principal of the school, said eight to nine of its 13-14 teachers were engaged in election duty during the two-month exercise till September 30 to dispose of the notices, leaving only three or four teachers to manage the school.

Another woman teacher from the same school, who worked as an assistant to a BLO, said the polling personnel often struggled to find a proper place to sit. In some cases, local residents offered their houses to them, while another BLO had to sit beside an atta chakki as private schools where booths were located did not allow them to sit inside.

As of September 30, the last date for filing objections and claims, 3,77,987 Form-6 applications for inclusion of names in the electoral roll had been received. Gurugram accounted for the highest number at 39,985, followed by Faridabad (33,463) and Hisar (22,001). A total of 40,162 Form-7 applications seeking deletion of names were received, with the highest numbers from Panipat (3,600), Hisar (2,790) and Sirsa (2,539). Meanwhile, 2,14,693 Form-8 applications seeking corrections, changes in address or EPIC details were received.