Among the documents published by the office of the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on Monday, two — the minutes of a meeting between Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and booth-level agents (BLAs), and a media statement — placed voters whose names had been left out of the draft roll in five categories: ‘absent’, ‘shifted’, ‘dead’, ‘duplicate’ and ‘others’.

A third document, also published on Monday and containing details of the voters left out, however, classified them under only four categories: ‘permanently shifted’, ‘untraceable/absent’, ‘dead’ and ‘already enrolled’.

The mismatch assumes significance because official documents and an earlier press statement from the CEO’s office identify ‘others’ as a category comprising electors who did not submit or refused to submit their enumeration forms (EFs) and who were marked as ‘EF refused’.

An analysis by The Hindu of the list of names removed across 14,947 polling booths found no separate category for ‘EF refused’.

In Tughlaqabad Extension, 15 electors were recorded as ‘EF refused’ in the minutes of the meeting dated August 17, the last day of the enumeration phase, beyond which no changes were allowed. The minutes were signed by BLOs and BLAs of the BJP and AAP.

In Monday’s list, however, one of these 15 electors was categorised as ‘shifted’, while the remaining 14 were shown as ‘untraceable/absent’. Similar instances were found in other records.

When reached for comment on the issue, the CEO’s office did not respond.

A day after the enumeration phase of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Delhi ended, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) on Tuesday struggled to verify and process forms submitted online in the final hours, even as voters claimed that they either had been unable to submit forms or asked to enrol as new voters during the claims and objections phase despite having valid voter ID cards.

At the end of the verification and mapping phase on Monday, enumeration forms of 97.5 lakh (67.2%) voters had been digitised and verified. The remaining voters have been placed in the Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Others (ASDDO) list, which is likely to be published later this week. A majority of the 47.6 lakh voters in the ASDDO list have been marked as ‘Shifted’ while nearly 10 lakh entries have been identified as ‘Duplicate’. Two to three lakh names have been placed in the ‘Others’ category, The Hindu has learnt.

‘Incorrect information’

Raj, a 21-year-old voter from the Malviya Nagar constituency, said his BLO told him on August 10 that the deadline to enrol had ended. On August 7, the Election Commission had extended the deadline to August 17. “When I called the BLO, he said he could not accept the form as the deadline was over. I did not argue with him,” he said.

BLO cites ‘stress’

When reached for comment, the BLO did not deny misinforming Mr. Raj, citing “mounting stress”.

Mr. Raj is among 32.8% of voters in the city whose names will not appear in the draft roll that will be published on August 24.

Those excluded from the roll will have to submit Form 6 and a declaration during the claims and objections phase, from August 24 to September 23, to enrol themselves.

In another constituency in south Delhi, Shahnoor Mansoori, 23, said he was advised to let his name be deleted during the enumeration phase and enrol afresh during the claims and objections phase.

Nearly a year ago, Mr. Mansoori had registered as a new voter in Delhi and was assigned a polling booth number based on his address. However, he claimed that he was unable to submit his enumeration form online because the system showed a mismatch between his Aadhaar and Voter ID card details. The portal directed him to submit the form in person to his BLO. “When I contacted the area BLO, he said my enumeration form was with another BLO, but he never shared that official’s contact number,” he said.

Mr. Mansoori went to the nearest polling station and was advised to fill a form to register himself as a new voter during the claims and objections phase. “If this is such an important exercise, they should have been a little less casual,” he said.

Such instances have come to light despite election officials maintaining that all entries in the ASDDO list have been verified.

As of Tuesday morning, over 1,500 forms submitted online were awaiting verification, sources said, adding that the forms were submitted shortly before the deadline on Monday night and the option of making changes in the BLO app is no longer available.

The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the Election Commission’s (EC) response to a public interest litigation (PIL) plea challenging the “large-scale” deployment of government school teachers as Booth-Level Officers (BLOs) and enumeration staff for the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the national capital.

A Bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia directed the EC to file a short affidavit after hearing the PIL plea filed by advocates Rajesh Kumar Gogna and Ashok Agarwal. The plea questioned whether government school teachers could be mandatorily assigned election duties.

On July 22, Suman Lata, 51, a teacher at a Municipal Corporation of Delhi primary school and assigned BLO duties, died of a heart attack, her family said. Her husband, Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, said Lata had been under considerable stress over the past few days while balancing her responsibilities as a teacher and duties as a BLO.

The EC’s counsel submitted that the SIR is a nationwide exercise and teachers are required to perform poll-related work only during non-teaching hours or on holidays. He said teachers receive honorarium and compensation for the work, adding that only 10-14% of teachers are ultimately deployed.

“If a request is made for nine teachers, the school deploys only three to four. I don’t have a problem with four teachers showing up,” the EC’s counsel said, describing the poll panel’s approach as “liberal”.

‘What if they need rest?’

The Bench observed that if the EC states that participation by teachers is voluntary rather than mandatory, the court could dispose of the matter. “Can they be said to be mandatory? Somebody is not interested in your honorarium or compensation. They need rest. It should be voluntary. Taking shade of Article 324, you can do whatever you want?” the court orally remarked. “If you are calling them volunteers, make that statement. We will dispose of it,” it added.

Article 324 grants EC the power of “superintendence, direction and control” over polls in India.

‘Students affected’

The plea contended that the mass deployment of government, municipal and government-aided school teachers for the SIR is adversely affecting the education of lakhs of students in Delhi. It alleged that in several schools, regular teaching staff had been withdrawn during school hours, forcing classes to be handled by guest teachers or teachers from unrelated subjects.

The plea sought a direction to the authorities to “rationalise” the deployment of school teachers by capping it at 10% and scheduling their duties outside teaching hours.

The High Court listed the next hearing in the plea for July 28.