Prove you are not Bangladeshi or Rohingya: Delhi BLOs asked to seek more documents
Despite the Supreme Court ruling that the Election Commission has no locus standi to determine citizenship, the Commission has reportedly asked booth-level officers (BLOs) in Delhi to seek additional documents from voters who submitted only Aadhaar cards, in response to ‘no mapping’ notices issued during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
According to The Hindu, several BLOs said electoral registration officers had instructed them to ask voters to establish that they were not ‘Bangladeshi’ or ‘Rohingya’ by furnishing additional documents, even when some had already submitted field verification reports and undertakings affirming their eligibility and long-standing residence at their addresses.
Voters who furnished only Aadhaar cards were flagged in the system, despite electoral registration officers having the authority to approve their inclusion in the final electoral roll if satisfied with the BLO’s field report and undertaking.
One BLO said instructions had changed repeatedly, with officers initially being told that an undertaking could suffice when voters lacked the documents prescribed by the Election Commission. Another cited a case in which a voter who had submitted a passport was nevertheless asked to produce further documents. Senior officials, however, denied that any such instructions had been issued.
Of the 97.5 lakh voters on Delhi’s draft electoral roll, 33.1 lakh received notices seeking proof of eligibility. Of these, 13.7 lakh had not been linked to the previous revision’s electoral rolls, while 19.3 lakh were flagged for logical discrepancies in their enumeration forms.
On October 27, the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s office said 31.2 lakh cases had been cleared for inclusion in the final roll, accounting for more than 94% of those issued notices. The deadline for disposing of the remaining cases has been extended to December 15, with the final roll scheduled for publication on December 22.