The Bengal administration is burning its midnight oil to appoint more than one lakh booth-level officers after the Election Commission made it clear that all BLOs should be state government employees or regular staff of local bodies at the Group C level and above.
“Since the deadline to submit the list of BLOs is June 20, the EROs (election registration officers) of all 294 Assembly segments sent letters to the heads of all government offices located in the constituency concerned to furnish details of employees in Group C and above categories. The employees who are residents of the Assembly segment and match the criteria of the poll panel will be appointed as BLOs,” said a senior state government official.
Bengal had 81,000 BLOs, but about 60 per cent of them have become ineligible following the fresh guidelines for appointing the officers. Moreover, about 20,000 booths will be added after the Election Commission decided that the maximum number of voters would be 1,200 at a polling station.
“So the state will have to appoint more than one lakh BLOs before the deadline. About 32,000 existing BLOs could be retained as they match the criteria. However, the government will have to find about 70,000 additional BLOs," the official said.
Sources said that although the fresh guidelines to appoint the BLOs ahead of the electoral roll revision scheduled to start in October had been issued for all states, Bengal was apparently in a tight spot. A majority of other states had appointed state government or local body employees as BLOs. So, they have to find a smaller number of BLOs compared to Bengal.
“Most of the BLOs in Bengal were village-level workers like village resource persons or ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activities) workers, as there was no bar on their appointment as BLOs. With the fresh rule in place, they will have to be replaced. It remains to be seen whether the Bengal government can find so many BLOs by following the new criteria," said a source.
According to a senior state government official, Bengal has 7.10 lakh employees who match the criteria of the poll panel. "But we are not sure that all booths could be covered by the available strength, since the BLOs should reside under the jurisdiction of the booths where they will be appointed. It is unlikely that some booths, particularly in remote areas, have state government employees in the Group C or the above categories,” said a bureaucrat.
He also said that in case the state failed to appoint BLOs in some booths because of the unavailability of the eligible staff, the government would look for alternatives.
The EC has mentioned in its guidelines that in case the authorities fail to find BLOs, central government employees, bank employees and contract teachers could be appointed as BLOs.
But in this case, the EROs and the district election officers, mainly the DMs, will have to secure the prior approval from the EC.
“Let us see how many booths will get regular state government or local body employees first. Then, further steps could be initiated,” said another bureaucrat.
The EC is laying stress on the criteria for appointing BLOs as they would be deputed by the poll panel for summary roll revision to make the electoral roll free of the names of ghost voters.