E-Paper
Tension in Godda over voter roll revision
A controversy erupted during the state’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls after a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) booth-level agent (BLA) filed a complaint alleging institutional leaks, confidentiality breaches, and physical intimidation in Godda district, said people aware of the development on Wednesday
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A controversy erupted during the state’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls after a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) booth-level agent (BLA) filed a complaint alleging institutional leaks, confidentiality breaches, and physical intimidation in Godda district, said people aware of the development on Wednesday..
Complainant Sanjeev Kumar Roshan, BLA-2 for booth 9 in Maheshtikari village, submitted a written complaint to the block development officer (BDO) of Basantrai.
According to the complaint filed on August 31, the dispute began on August 25, when designated booth-level officer (BLO), Anisha Banu, allegedly refused to accept Form-7 submissions which are used for deleting names from the voter list.
Roshan stated that after reviewing the documents, the BLO and her husband, Abdul Jabbar, declined to accept them into official records. The situation quickly escalated into a security concern the following day.
Roshan alleged that the BLO’s husband leaked his identity and the contents of the Form-7 submissions to local villagers, directly violating the strict confidentiality rules mandated by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The complaint states that rumours were spread claiming Roshan was actively trying to delete names of local residents from the voter list.
This allegedly led to an angry mob of 15 to 20 villagers storming Roshan’s residence on August 26. They shouted abusive language and aggressively forced him to surrender copies of the forms.
Seeking immediate administrative intervention, Roshan demanded disciplinary action against the BLO and her husband for violating election guidelines, official receipt of his submitted Form-7 documents, and security to his family.
The complaint mentions that under sections 171C and 171F of the Representation of the People Act 1951, intimidating an election worker constitutes undue influence, carrying a penalty of up to one year in prison.
Roshan also invoked sections 351 (criminal intimidation) and 196 (spreading rumours to promote enmity) of the BNS.
BLO Anisa Banu could not be contacted for her comment, but sources close to her said the form was allegedly submitted in bulk for deletion of a section of minority community members whose names appeared in 2003 SIR and who exist in the village.
Meanwhile, Jharkhand chief electoral officer (CEO) K Ravi Kumar on Wednesday clarified the statutory procedures governing bulk form submissions by political parties.
He emphasised that while authorised BLAs could collectively submit forms to ensure robust democratic participation, strict limits were in place to preserve the integrity of the revisions.
Because the draft electoral roll has already been published across Jharkhand, BLAs are legally restricted to submitting a maximum of 10 application forms per day to their respective BLOs. Furthermore, to combat unauthorised or fraudulent bulk purges, the CEO noted that if any single BLA submitted more than 30 total application forms during the revision window, the electoral registration officer (ERO) or assistant electoral registration officer (AERO) was legally bound to conduct individual, personal cross-verification of those applications.
Appealing to all recognised political parties and their agents to cooperate with the SIR process, Ravi Kumar stressed the broader stakes of the exercise.
“Through the participation of all stakeholders, it must be ensured that no eligible Indian citizen is left out of the electoral roll and that the name of no ineligible person or foreign national is included in it,” the CEO stated.
The state election office has reiterated that maintaining the exact rules and protocols is crucial to safeguarding the accuracy and credibility of the democratic process.
