Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 13 Feb: State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Dr BVRC Purushottam today chaired a meeting at the Secretariat with recognised national political parties to review various electoral issues. Office-bearers and representatives of the national political parties were present during the meeting. Detailed discussions were held on the forthcoming Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) outreach campaign and the appointment of Booth Level Agents (BLAs) to ensure full coverage at the grassroots level.
On this occasion, the CEO stated that, in preparation for the upcoming SIR, the BLOs across the State are conducting an outreach campaign to map the present voters with reference to the 2003 electoral roll. He informed them that 79 per cent of the mapping exercise has already been completed in the state. Appealing to the political parties for cooperation, he said that the mapping process could be expedited further in Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital with the active assistance of BLAs appointed by the political parties.
Purushottam shared that, at present, political parties have appointed a total of 15,437 BLAs across the State. Of these, 7,165 have been appointed by the BJP, 7,968 by the Congress, 117 by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and 187 by the CPI (M). He noted that, so far, neither the Aam Aadmi Party nor the National People’s Party has appointed any BLA. The Chief Electoral Officer appealed to all recognised political parties to ensure 100 per cent appointment of Booth Level Agents by the end of February.
Among those present at the meeting were Additional Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Kumar Jogdande, Joint Chief Electoral Officer Prakash Chandra, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Kishan Singh Negi and Assistant Chief Electoral Officer Mastu Das. Representatives from political parties included Rajkumar Purohit and Virendra Valdia from the BJP, Manoj Rawat and Amendra Bisht from the Congress, Anant Akash from CPI (M) and Surendra Jajaria from the Bahujan Samaj Party.
