The move comes amid claims by a research group that appeals have been filed to exclude nearly half the voters whose inclusion was cleared by judicial officers.
Kolkata: Bengal voters whose appeals are pending before the SIR tribunals can now submit additional documents through their booth-level officers (BLOs), offering hope to those seeking restoration of their names in the electoral rolls.
Around 38 lakh appeals had been filed before the tribunals, according to an EC affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court in Sept. Of these, approximately 1.2 lakh had been decided, leaving nearly 37 lakh pending.
On Thursday, the Election Commission (EC) introduced a new feature, “Upload documents against Appeal”, on its BLO App. EC officials said BLOs would collect additional documents from voters who had appealed against the deletion of their names and upload them to the system for judicial officers to scrutinise before deciding the cases. A senior EC official told TOI : “Now the people who had filed appeals in tribunals after their names were struck off the electoral roll can submit additional documents through their respective BLOs. Swapan Mondal, general secretary of Votekarmi o BLO Aikyamancha, said, “It has not been communicated to the BLOs that they are to use the new feature for uploading additional documents of the tribunal appellants.”
For instance, if any person had submitted two of his or her four documents to make an appeal in the tribunal, he or she can now get two more additional documents uploaded with the help of BLO.