A total of 18,748 applications were filed in Maharashtra seeking deletion of names till Oct 8
Activist Ulka Mahajan said every deletion request needed careful scrutiny, particularly when field verification itself remained a concern. “These forms have to be double-checked and BLOs (booth-level officers), who are supposed to visit people’s homes, are not reaching them,” she said.
Election Commission of India (ECI)’s 10 Form 7 application cap per individual came amid controversies over alleged attempts to use it to remove eligible voters. In Karnataka’s Ballari City constituency, a dispute erupted over the re-verification of 7,561 voters. In Hyderabad’s Musheerabad constituency, Congress alleged that a BJP booth-level agent had filed more than 30 Form 7 applications seeking deletion of members of a Muslim family.
A senior official from the state chief electoral officer’s office said checks on bulk applications were under way. He said electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant EROs (AEROs) would reconcile applications received through the voter services portal with the physical forms submitted to BLOs and election offices, identify repeat applicants and determine how to handle cases exceeding the new ceiling. Congress alleged it was an attempt to delete their names.