Punjab CEO urges parties to appoint BLAs for SIR

Chandigarh: With the Election Commission of India (ECI) initiating the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, Punjab chief electoral officer Anindita Mitra on Friday held a meeting with representatives of registered and recognised political parties and urged them to appoint booth-level agents (BLAs) at the earliest to ensure transparency and smooth conduct of the entire process.Emphasising that the BLAs would play an extremely crucial role throughout the SIR process, the chief electoral officer (CEO) asked the political parties to complete the appointment of BLAs without any delay.She said the timely deployment of BLAs would facilitate their training alongside booth-level officers (BLOs) and ensure regular information sharing at every stage of the exercise to maintain complete transparency.Responding to the concerns of political parties regarding the SIR process, Mitra assured all representatives that "the entire SIR exercise will be conducted in a fully transparent manner".Ferry Sofat from the Aam Aadmi Party, N K Verma from the BJP, Dr Amar Singh and Captain Sandeep Sandhu from the Congress party, and Daljit Singh Cheema and Arshdeep Singh Kler from the Shiromani Akali Dal attended the meeting.Other representatives who were present in the meeting included Avtar Singh Karimpuri from the BSP, R L Modgill and Ranjit Singh from the CPI (Marxist), Kushalpal Singh Mann from SAD (Amritsar), Major R P S Malhotra from Jai Jawan Jai Kisan Party, P Kumar from Nationalist Justice Party, Sucha Lal from Sacho Sach Party, Sukhdev Singh from Sada Punjab Sanjha Punjab Party, and Jaswinder Singh from Samajik Sangharsh Party.MSID:: 131120762 413 |