S.I.R. Chaos : Who Designed this Form and Who Trained the BLOs

Special Intensive Review (S.I.R.): Bureaucratic Nightmare unleashed in West Bengal

 We, the electors (Voter) of West Bengal have received a threat of 1 year jail or fine for providing incorrect information in the form. If you are not aware about this, you should read Point (iii) of the declaration part Enumeration Form. 

This form Is designed by Election Commission and distributed by BLOs who are temporarily deputed from state government employees.

Error Number 1: The Heading: This is not an Enumeration Form.

What does Enumeration Mean ?

It means Making A List or The List itself. 

But this form Is about One Elector only, for each family member there is a separate form.

So BLO is definitely making a list or Enumerating, Election Commission is definitely making a list, But We the voters are only Self-declaring about Ourselves in a form for INCLUSION IN VOTER LIST as point number (ii) of the declaration says.

 Wait a minute, Doesn't the top column say, I'm a voter of Such and Such Constituency from such and such Polling Booth?

Then Form name should be VOTER CONFIRMATION FORM, not ENUMERATION FORM.

 Actually in such previous surveys for Voters, there was only one form for each household, where a senior member of the Family would enumerate all voters in the household .  Those were Enumeration Forms, this most certainly is not.

Error Number 2: No Identifying Serial Number of the (Input) items or the forms.

(Each) Voter receives two printouts of the same form, so they carry same QR code. Any Xerox Copy would work just fine. This is a serious Security Issue, in case if somebody in the chain of operations of Election Commission wants to commit malice by changing the original document. At this point, I must declare that my BLO is known to me and she will not be part of any wrong-doing, unfortunately she will not be making the final list...that person's identity is unknown to us, both the Elector and BLO.

Coming back to clearly identified Form Number; Ideally the form number should have been Human Readable and named "EPIC NO" followed by A and B.

This form is divided in 3 tables and a declaration by the Voters follows them.

 

First table contains Printed Personal Information of the Elector and the BLO so for civilised manners, we have decided to hide them.

First table requires no entry, just a photo to be affixed there. So lets concentrate on next two table and since some of you are not able to read Bengali lets show you the English Version of Enumeration Form.

And you can see, there are no Serial Numbers for these entries. The Election Commission provides no guidelines for filling the form like you would get in Passport Applications.

All the help comes from verbal communications from BLOs, who say "This was told to us in training", as I communicated with multiple BLOs  and none of them are given any written or printed material on filling the Enumeration Form. Had Election Commission given one set to each BLO, they would have shown that to the electors. But no they were given Verbal Instructions and also told to pass down those instructions orally. 

Let's look at the Second Table:

1. Date of Birth in DD/MM/YYYY format, but in which Calendar? Many Rural & Specially Old Folks can't give this detail in Gregorian Calendar, but would give in Bengali Calendar.. and EC already have their data in EPIC Card Database.. 

Why ask again?

2. Aadhaar Number is Optional but Mobile Number is not? Does ECI know for sure, Every Elector in West Bengal have access to a Mobile phone?

3. What happens if an Elector have multiple spouses? Why one line? No instruction is given if comma separation would work in such tiny spaces. 

4. No clear directive if "Late" salutation has to be written for Deceased Father or Mother or Spouse!!  Does ECI store old EPIC number of Deceased Electors for SIR validation? What do they mean by "If Available"? available to Electors or to ECI?

I can share huge number of 2002 SIR data where no "Late" salutation was used .. like this one..

Then why some BLO is insisting on "Late" salutation? And some are flexible? Do people have to write that when filling in Bengali or Urdu or Tamil or Marathi or Punjabi? Any language speaker can be an Elector in West Bengal,  Constitution bars none.

ERROR NUMBER 3: NO Concept of Table and how to present data in Tabular Structure.

No Concept of PREVIOUS COLUMN!

Now every Election Commission official should know that ,  A table consists of Rows & Columns .

Now Column Number 2 is the Next Column of Column Number 1, Column 3 is the Next Column of Column Number 2.

Similarly Column Number 2 is the Previous Column of Column Number 3, Column 1 is the Previous Column of Column Number 2.

But the Last Table of the Enumeration Form, clearly proves Election Commission, The Entire Bengali Intelligentsia, either doesn't understand this simple concept or lacks the Attention to Detail to read an One Page Form.

I have asked this simple question of Twitter (or X ) and No one could answer "What is the Previous Column to the Column 2"?

In Bengali Form Previous is correctly written as "Purba-barti" and Column is translitareted as "Kolam" in Table 3 of Enumeration Form.

But Election Commission has trained all BLOs incorrectly about this table and Godi Media parrots every word they say.. 

According to Election Commission, BLOs, Political Party BLAs:  Electors should fill up only one Column .. First Column if they are listed in last SIR of 2002, Second Column if they are not listed in SIR of 2002.

But that Explanation is grossly wrong, as we have to go by the Column Headings as they are the only Instructions on filling the Columns ..

First Column Heading is :

"Details of Elector in Electoral Roll of the last SIR" 

(So those enrolled after 2002 SIR can't fill it)

Second Column Heading is :

"Details of the Relative, whose name is given in previous column, in the Last SIR"

Where Does it say, "Electors whose details are not mentioned in last SIR"

Then what does this Heading Mean and Who should fill this? LET'S EXPLAIN THIS WITH A DIAGRAM ON THE TABLE:

Notice that it says, "Whose name is mentioned in previous Column" which is the First Column. 

It also says, "Details of the Relative" which is the third data row of Column 1.

What details to put, "As found in last SIR" ..

Now in the First Column, if a voter has entered his or her Father's or Husband's or any other Elderly person's name..

He has to fill that person's SIR detail here.. 

for example, if that relative was The Father, then...

Father's name, Father's EPIC, Grandfather's name, details of Father's voting Assembly Constituency, Booth to voter Serial number in that Booth or Part .

Since it is already established through Column Heading of First Column that people who were not Present in SIR 2002, how can they find their Relative's Name in First Column.. then how can they fill up Second Column ?

This proves that Election Commission has badly construed this Form and trained the BLOs in even worse manner.. And if we go by BLO's oral directions then we all be making Grave Errors and could face One year in Jail for furnishing wrong information.. 

Lower Level Election Commission Officials like BLOs are threatened with 2 years in Jail.. 

While Top Level Election Commission officials will get free air travels round the globe to lecture about "Dance of Democracy".

If not jail, Voters whom BJP-supporting Election Commission don't like, they can be easily removed from the electoral rolls for inconsistent, incomplete or incorrect filling of this form. Is that the plan and purpose of Special Intensive Review, SIR?

I will not blame a Single BLO (Booth Level Officer), it's not their everyday job to verify a brand new Bureaucratic Nightmare of an Enumeration Form .. which is not even an Enumeration or a List.

ERROR NUMBER 4: Invention of "Self" Relationship 

In order to bypass the filling 2nd Column, BLOs are trained by Election Commission to Skip Relative's name and write "Self" in the "Relationship" column..

But Election Commission forgets, this column has to be filled as it was given in 2002 SIR and No Electoral was listed without any "Name of the Relation" (that's Relative's Name in that SIR ) and nobody was that "Fashionable Woke" in India in 2002 so that they would write "Self" in Relationship column .. 

Such declaration would be a mismatch from last SIR detail and could lead to disenfranchisement of the Voter.