Pawan Kumar Sain urged political parties in Arunachal Pradesh to appoint booth-level agents (BLAs) for all polling stations before the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls begins from June 15.Chairing a state-level coordination meeting at Nirvachan Bhawan, Sain expressed concern over the low participation of party representatives and the slow pace of BLA appointments despite repeated appeals made during earlier meetings.Election officials said the state has a total of 2,288 polling stations and active involvement of political parties is necessary to maintain accurate and error-free electoral rolls. Arunachal Pradesh has been included in the third phase of the nationwide Special Intensive Revision exercise being carried out by the Election Commission.Officials said the revision process has become necessary after nearly two decades due to rapid urbanisation, migration, duplicate voter entries and failure to remove the names of deceased voters from electoral rolls.
According to figures reviewed during the meeting, the Bharatiya Janata Party has appointed 2,286 BLAs across the state. The Indian National Congress has appointed 422 BLAs, while the People’s Party of Arunachal has appointed 239. The National People’s Party has appointed 100 BLAs, followed by the Nationalist Congress Party with 43 and NCP(A) with 41. In total, 3,131 BLAs have been appointed in the state so far.Sain asked political parties to direct their district-level representatives to actively participate in meetings organised by district election officers and electoral registration officers during the revision process.Officials also gave a detailed presentation on the SIR exercise, covering training of election staff, distribution of enumeration forms, rationalisation of polling stations, publication of draft electoral rolls, claims and objections, and preparation of the final voter list.
The meeting was attended by Liken Koyu, Shania Kayem Mize and representatives from the BJP, Congress, PPA and NPP. Discussions during the meeting also focused on legal provisions related to electoral roll revision under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, voter eligibility under Article 326 of the Constitution and citizenship-related provisions under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
