CEO Anindita Mitra urges political parties to appoint BLAs; Toll-free number 1950 to remain operational round the clock during SIR
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ May 15,2026
With the Election Commission of India initiating the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, Chief Electoral Officer Punjab Anindita Mitra on Friday held a meeting with representatives of registered and recognised political parties and urged them to appoint Booth Level Agents (BLAs) at the earliest to ensure transparency and smooth conduct of the entire revision process.
During the meeting, the Chief Electoral Officer stressed that Booth Level Agents (BLAs) would play extremely crucial role throughout the Special Intensive Revision process, hence the registered and recognised political parties in Punjab should complete their appointments without any delay. She said timely deployment of BLAs would facilitate their training alongside Booth Level Officers (BLOs), while ensuring regular sharing of information at every stage of the exercise to maintain complete transparency. Besides this, she also asked political parties to expedite the appointment process of BLA-1.
Mitra said that throughout the SIR process, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab will remain in continuous coordination with political parties. The political parties were also briefed about right of vote.
She informed that under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), BLOs across Punjab will conduct door-to-door visits from June 25 to July 24, 2026 for filling voter forms. For this exercise, the entire election machinery has been deployed, including 24,453 BLOs, 2,476 Supervisors, 117 EROs and 234 AEROs. She further informed that training of BLOs and other preparatory arrangements related to the SIR exercise will be carried out from June 15 to June 24, 2026.
She said the objective of the exercise is to ensure inclusion of every eligible citizen in the electoral rolls and deletion of ineligible persons from the voter list. The Chief Electoral Officer said that holding duplicate votes is an offence under the Constitution of India and is punishable with imprisonment of up to one year.
Anindita Mitra further informed that 89.58 per cent mapping has already been completed in rural areas of the state, while 73 per cent mapping work has been completed in urban areas.
The Chief Electoral Officer also informed that a Special Intensive Revision had earlier been conducted in Punjab in 2003 and the current SIR exercise is being undertaken on the basis of that revision.
During the meeting, political parties raised certain queries regarding the SIR process, which were clarified by the Chief Electoral Officer. She assured all representatives that the entire SIR exercise would be conducted in a fully transparent manner.
Prominent amongst others who were present in the meeting included representatives of recognised political parties namely Ferry Sofat from the Aam Aadmi Party, Dr. Avtar Singh Karimpuri from the Bahujan Samaj Party, N.K. Verma from the Bharatiya Janata Party, R.L. Modgill and Ranjit Singh from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Dr. Amar Singh and Captain Sandeep Sandhu from the Indian National Congress, Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema and Advocate Arshdeep Singh Kler from the Shiromani Akali Dal. Representatives from registered and unrecognised political parties who attended the meeting included Major R.P.S. Malhotra from Jai Jawan Jai Kisan Party, P. Kumar from Nationalist Justice Party, Sucha Lal from Sacho Sach Party, Sukhdev Singh from Sada Punjab Sanjha Punjab Party, Jaswinder Singh from Samajik Sangharsh Party and Kushalpal Singh Mann from Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar).
