SIR and local body polls: District Collectors sandwiched between two power centres

The simultaneous conduct of the local body polls and Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Kerala has put district collectors in a spot of bother. They have to take orders from two power centres, the Election Commission of India (ECI) and State Election Commission (SEC) Kerala; the requirements of one clashing with that of the other. 

District collectors function as the District Election Officers of both the ECI and the SEC. On November 3, an order by Rathan U Kelkar, the Chief Electoral Officer Kerala under the ECI, giving full-time SIR duty for booth-level officers (BLOs) from November 4 to December 4 potentially disrupted the 'local body poll'-related functioning of the SEC. 

The original sense was that employees would take up SIR work after office hours. Now, following the ECI orders and the great importance it attached to SIR enumeration work, collectors made arrangements to spare BLOs from routine work. 

This meant that employees working for the SEC - as returning officers, assistant returning officers and their support staff in the various district and panchayat offices of the Local Self Government Department - would be fully removed from election duty for the most critical month (November 4 - December 4). 

The State Election Commissioner, A Shajahan, objected. Kelkar revised the order the very next day. 

The modified order on November 4 said that his earlier order would not be applicable to "those officers and staffs engaged by the SEC in connection with ensuing general elections to Local Self Government Institutions, 2025."

To further clarify the situation, Shajahan and Kelkar jointly held an online meeting on Wednesday with all the 14 district collectors. 

CEO Rathan Kelkar told collectors that the SIR process should be held without impeding the conduct of the local body polls. Kelkar also asked the collectors to remove as BLOs the employees the SEC was using for the conduct of the local body polls. 

There will be as many BLOs as booths in a constituency, and they are appointed by the CEO Kerala. Nilambur constituency, for instance, has 263 booths. Therefore, 263 will be the number of BLOs in Nilambur. Their designations range from government school teacher, office superintendent and senior clerk to attender and even anganwadi worker. 

During the Enumeration Phase of the SIR (November 4 to December 4), it is the BLOs who do the house-to-house verification and collect voter data to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the electoral rolls. 35-40 per cent of BLOs for the enumeration work were picked from the LSG Department. 

District collectors are now faced with a big challenge: Quickly find replacements from other departments to complete the Enumeration Phase on time. 

All major political parties in Kerala, except the BJP, had warned that the SIR exercise would complicate the conduct of the local body polls.