BJP plans major outreach in bid to match Opposition overdrive on Bihar SIR

The BJP has planned a major exercise to reach out to voters amid the EC's ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar. (Representative Image: AP)

Feeling the heat over adverse reports on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls announced by the Election Commission of India, the Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party has now stepped into overdrive to reach out to voters and help them with the enrolment process and also try and match the Opposition which has significantly ramped up its efforts in this regard.

On Monday, Bihar BJP organisation secretary Bhikhu Bhai Dalsania on Monday held a meeting with 26 state functionaries, instructing them to fan out across the state and meet voters to assuage their concerns and help the party's supporters with the process of enrolment.

The worry within the BJP isn't just about the confusion among voters regarding the exercise but equally about allowing the Opposition, which has raised concerns such as "mass disenfranchisement" and the "EC's haste" in conducting the elaborate exercise, to shape the narrative on the issue.

Parallelly, the Opposition has also been ahead of the BJP in increasing the number of its Booth Level Agents who will prove crucial in enrolling voters and helping them navigate the documentation process that the EC has prescribed.

EC data shows that between June 25, when the SIR began, and July 2, total BLAs across parties in the state had risen by 13 percent. Among them, the INDIA bloc comprising the RJD, Congress and Left added 17.51 percent BLAs, boosting their total from 56,038 to 65,853, The Indian Express reported.

The Congress nearly doubled its BLA presence, from 8,586 to 16,500 – a jump of 92.17 percent.

In comparison, the NDA comprising the BJP and JD(U), saw a lesser surge of 10.86 percent, with their BLA count rising from 80,083 to 88,781 - an addition of a meagre 1.39% during the same period, the report added.

Of them, the BJP's tally went up from 51,964 to 52,689, while the JD(U) increased its BLA tally by 24.13 percent, taking its total from 27,931 to 34,669.

Between July 19 and July 31, the day before the publication of the first draft electoral roll,
BJP leaders will hold Assembly constituency-wise meetings to get their own feedback on the SIR even as the party's BLAs ramp up their efforts to cover as many of the 73,000 polling booths as possible.

BJP leaders who met Dalsania on Monday apprised him of the feedback from the ground on the SIR process and informed him that voters who are applying for verification are not even receiving a receipt for the same while most people claimed that no one has collected the form from them.

A BJP leader present at the meeting told IE that despite the numeric advantage it has in terms of the number of BLAs, they were yet to cover all polling booths in the state.

"We look complacent as compared to the Opposition... It is only when we noticed Opposition parties being pro-active at the booth level that we realised that we needed to catch up and be equal to the task," he told the paper, adding that the EC's decision to hold this elaborate exercise had caught the BJP equally by surprise with its BLAs unprepared for what was coming.

As per the feedback received by BJP leaders on the ground, hardly 30 percent of those who submitted their enrolment forms so far have done so with the required documents. "We have gathered from field reports that 70%-80% people have submitted the forms without any of the 11 documents specified by the EC," the leader said, underlining how the period after August 1 when the documents for enrolment are to be uploaded, will be even more crucial.

To cope with the challenge, the BJP now plans to deploy its functionaries to be involved with the BLAs every step of the way.

"There are two types of BLAs: BLA-1, who are one per Assembly segment, covering all the 243 seats; and BLA-2, who are delegated per polling booth and who interact with Booth Level Officers of the EC. BJP functionaries will now tag along with both sets of BLAs," the leader said.