Several booth-level officers in Allahabad district are shirking or openly refusing to do their SIR duties, undeterred even by punishment in the form of a salary freeze or a police case.

The reason is that unlike Bengal — where voters worried about a threat to their citizenship are scrambling to fill out the enumeration
forms – thousands in Allahabad are refusing to accept the forms and venting their anger at the BLOs.

“People resent us for handing them the enumeration forms. They look at us with doubt and often refuse to accept the forms,” a BLO from Phaphamau Assembly constituency in Allahabad told The Telegraph on Saturday, refusing to be named.

“Many of us are local people. This makes us vulnerable. This is why many of us have stopped doing SIR work.”

Phaphamau — the rural constituency where the problem is the acutest — is part of the Phulpur Lok Sabha seat that Jawaharlal Nehru represented from 1952 till his death in 1964. Residents and local officials gave contrasting reasons for the voters’ reluctance to participate in the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls, started this month with next year’s local body polls in mind.

All, however, seemed agreed on one point: The voters of Uttar Pradesh, unlike their Bengal counterparts, did not fear being branded “Bangladeshis” if they let the SIR bypass them. And all seemed confident of “managing” to be on the rolls somehow even if they boycotted the exercise.

Officials said many voters in Allahabad appear on the rolls for multiple booths, citing this as a possible reason for people trying to avoid the SIR process.

“A large number of people have their names in two places. There are some whose names are at four places,” Allahabad district magistrate Manish Kumar Verma told reporters, without referring to voters’ refusal to accept the enumeration forms.

However, a voter told this newspaper that people were suspicious about the SIR and blamed the BLOs.

“A BLO refused to accept the forms submitted by some people in our area and asked them to mention their Aadhaar numbers, although the form states this is optional,” said Sanket Shukla, 24, an undergraduate student from Phaphamau.

He added: “Some officers told us Phaphamau had at least 2.5 lakh voters registered in multiple Assembly segments. The claim sounds absurd. We want the authorities to mention those names right at the start of this exercise instead of deleting names later without warning.

“Senior officers should have met the villagers and clarified our doubts…. The situation is the same in other parts of the district.”

Government sources said only 1.5 lakh of Phaphamau’s 46.92 lakh voters had been covered so far. “It’s impossible to complete the target within the given time (December 9),” an official involved in the SIR said.

Salary block, FIR

The state government has sought an explanation from two assistant returning officers and four supervisors in Allahabad district for “showing disinterest” in the SIR process.

It has withheld the salaries of seven BLOs in the district and registered an FIR against one of them.

“Action was taken against them on the charge of being absent from their places of assignment,” Hiralal Saini, electoral registration officer for Phaphamau, said.

“The supervisors are government schoolteachers. The BLOs are Anganwadi workers, Shiksha Mitras (ad hoc teachers), panchayat assistants and PWD employees.”

Shakuntana Yadav, an Anganwadi worker from Holagarh, had an FIR registered against her when she refused outright to distribute the enumeration forms.

Sources said all efforts by the department to persuade her had failed. She was quoted as telling her boss that she didn’t want to become “an enemy to every villager”.

Rita Pandey, Sunita Maurya, Suman Tiwari and Sunita Bharatiya are among the other Anganwadi workers whose salaries have been ordered withheld for their failure to carry out their BLO duties, assigned in the eastern and central parts of the district.

Four BLOs from the Allahabad South Assembly segment too have been holding out despite repeated warnings. Government sources identified them as Amit Kumar Pal, Manish Rai, Rajendra Yadav and Chhavi Srivastava.

All four work in the PWD and have reportedly said in writing that their departmental duties have left them with no time for the SIR.

Phaphamau has been with the BJP since 2017, while the ruling party has held Phulpur since 2014 barring a year’s gap in 2018-19 when the Samajwadi Party won a by-election. The BJP lost Allahabad, the other Lok Sabha seat in the district, to the Congress last year.