Alipurduar, Nov. 6 -- Even as a special team from the Election Commission visited Alipurduar on Thursday to review the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, a severe shortage of voter enumeration forms continues to paralyse the exercise across the district.

Against a requirement of nearly 15 lakh forms, only around 2 lakh have arrived so far-leaving Booth Level Officers (BLOs) unable to carry out door-to-door distribution and prompting the Trinamool Congress (TMC) to lash out at the Commission.

Trinamool's Alipurduar district BLA-1, Sourav Chakraborty, expressed strong resentment over the situation. "The Commission started the SIR process without adequate preparation. Alipurduar needs at least 15 lakh forms, but we have only about 2,00,000. The administration says more will arrive soon, but the situation will not normalise before November 8," he said. "There is chaos everywhere. People were ready to fill out forms but three entire days were wasted. The BJP government at the Centre made big announcements, but there are no forms. We've asked our 1,350 BLA-2 workers to stay calm and help the people," he added. Due to the shortage, BLOs are left with only the voter list in-hand and are distributing a limited number of forms, which has led to growing public frustration.

One BLO, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "After waiting the whole day on Tuesday, I received only a few forms in the evening. My booth has around 1,200 voters and with so few forms, it's uncertain how the process will be completed."

Meanwhile, the Election Commission's special team held a review meeting at Dooars Kanya, the district administrative building, attended by Senior Deputy Election Commissioner of India Gyanesh Bharti, state Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal and a six-member delegation. The meeting also included the District Election Officer, EROs, and AEROs. Although the team reviewed the technical aspects of the SIR process and voter list verification, the form shortage issue was not discussed.

After the meeting, state Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal stated: "Not a single eligible voter will be left out of the SIR process. Keeping that objective in mind, we conducted today's review meeting. There is no shortage of forms-every BLO will soon receive an adequate supply."

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.