HYDERABAD: Several residents of Hyderabad’s old city Tuesday contacted a booth-level officer (BLO) of the Election Commission to help them identify their names on the 2002 electoral rolls as part of the pre-SIR mapping exercise. To their shock, instead of someone who knew the rulebook, they were approached by a sanitation worker of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation who had no idea how to map voters.
The issue came to light in Barkas, under Chandrayangutta constituency, when residents noticed the name and contact number of an assigned BLO on the EC website and reached out. “About 20 of us were waiting at Al-Qurmoshi Global School in Salala, Barkas. As we spoke to him, we realised he did not even know the role of a BLO. It was only when I mentioned SIR mapping that he came to the location,” said Syed Jallaluddin Zafar, an activist who was helping residents with the mapping process.“He could not read or write in Telugu. He simply handed over the phone and asked us to enter the details into an online form,” Zafar said. The video of the episode recorded by Zafar has since gone viral on X.Although there is no explicit rule prohibiting sanitation workers from being appointed as BLOs, the guidelines state that such roles are generally assigned to govt or semi-govt staff, such as teachers, anganwadi workers, panchayat staff, clerks and bill collectors – individuals expected to have basic literacy skills and administrative experience.One of the sanitation workers appointed as a BLO said they had been given smartphones for SIR work. “Along with me, around 10 such workers have been deployed for the exercise. We were asked to open the portal on the phone and hand it to the person, who then entered his or her details into a form. If the name appears, they put a tick. I attended a training session where we were promised payment,” he said.The sanitation worker said he starts work at 5am and continues the SIR duty after finishing his shift at 2pm. “I cannot read or write in Telugu or English. We were only told to put a tick if their name appeared. It has only been two days since we started this work,” he said.Chandrayangutta electoral registration officer V Surender said the appointments had been made due to an acute shortage of staff. “Many personnel have retired, and the scale of the exercise is large, so this is a stop-gap arrangement. In our area, we have three sweepers working as BLOs, but we ensured the appointees had studied at least up to Class 9 and had basic proficiency. …They will be replaced soon.
