Fresh lapses have come to light in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise in Delhi, with official data showing that booth-level agents (BLAs) bypassed the Election Commission’s (EC) cap on submitting only 10 applications a day during the claims and objections phase by filing through the panel’s ECINET portal, which has no such restriction in place.

No limit on online forms

The software has no mechanism to impose the prescribed limit, effectively allowing the guidelines to be bypassed.

An analysis of Form 10 reports — a public list of all objections to the inclusion of names in electoral rolls — put out between September 21 and 27 shows that four individuals filed more than 10 applications a day.

One of them — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) BLA Chitresh Chandoliya — filed 35 objections in two days — 12 on September 21 and 23 on September 22.

In one case, 20-year-old Apoorv Dwivedy, a resident of Sangam Vihar, appeared to have filed an objection through Form 7 against his own name citing ‘death’ as the reason.

Form 7 is the document used to object to the inclusion of a voter’s name in the electoral roll or to request the deletion of a name from the roll.

When reached for comment, Mr. Chitresh, son of BJP’s North West Delhi MP Yogender Chandoliya, said, “I filed all the Form 7s online. If I were to submit the forms to the EC office, I wouldn’t be allowed more than 10.” He added, “You need to be a party-appointed BLA to fill forms in bulk. For online, there is no such condition. I log in like any other citizen and use Aadhaar authentication to fill forms. There is no section to specify that I am a BLA.”

Form 10 reports are available on ECINET for seven days.

When reached for comment, Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashok Kumar’s office did not respond.

EC guidelines

The poll panel’s guidelines state that BLAs of recognised political parties may file applications in bulk, subject to the condition that a BLA “shall not submit more than” 10 forms a day after publication of the draft electoral roll.

The guidelines also require applications received through Forms 6 (for inclusion), 7 and 8 (for modification) to be computerised and uploaded on the Delhi CEO’s website daily, in addition to the other consolidated statutory reports.

The application-level details have not been published on the CEO’s website nearly a month into the claims and objections period, official data show.

All Form 7s filed by the BJP BLA for residents of Karol Bagh cited ‘absent/permanently shifted’ as the reason. He said people concerned either did not live at the addresses mentioned in the roll or had sold their houses, including 15 women who married and moved out of the area or city.

visited some of the houses whose occupants Mr. Chitresh had filed Form 7s against and found a resident, Karnail Singh, at his address. However, Mr. Chitresh said he had sought the removal of Mr. Singh’s name from the roll as the voter “lives far from his booth”.

Spot checks

A spot check in Patel Nagar’s Part 38, where a person named Raj Singh had filed objections against 13 names on September 26, revealed that there were multi-storey buildings in narrow lanes, with several houses sharing the same house number.

Brothers Danish Khan and Toufiq Khan live at the address mentioned in the draft roll. Their names had nevertheless been challenged on the grounds of being ‘absent/permanently shifted’. “We have not filled any application for deletion or shifting,” Mr. Danish said.

Residents said several others whose names had been challenged moved to different houses within the locality. The other persons who had filed over 10 applications for deletion of names were Arun Kumar Tanwar, who filed 12 Form 7s on September 25 against voters in Delhi Cantonment, and Sabo Devi, who filed 15 on September 27 against voters in Tri Nagar.

Between September 21 and 27, as many as 1,095 Form 7 objections were filed in Delhi. Data show around 80% were filed by individuals against their own names. An Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) said while filing Form 7 offline, an objector can enter another person’s name in the objector’s field.

The analysis also showed that more Form 7 applications were disposed of than applications under Form 6, despite the latter being higher in number. Between September 14 and 20, a total of 519 Form 7 applications were disposed of as against 92 Form 6 applications, though disposal of an objection requires a notice, hearing, and speaking order by the ERO.

The deadline for filing claims and objections has been extended from September 30 to October 30.

The deadline to publish the final roll is December 4. Since the draft roll was published, the EC has received 1.54 lakh applications for inclusion and 3,435 applications seeking deletion of names..