All parties must nominate booth-level agents: Poll officer

Chief Election Officer (CEO) of Haryana Pankaj Agarwal has said as per the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India, it is mandatory for all parties to appoint booth-level agents (BLAs). From now on, the BLA records will have to be maintained by the office of the CEO in states and union territories.

He said a two-day workshop of CEOs of all states was organised at the India International Democracy and Election Management Council in Delhi recently, in which the Election Commission gave instructions to appoint BLAs.

He said Haryana had six national-level and two state-level recognised political parties. All parties had to appoint BLAs 1 and 2. For political parties, BLA was an authorised person who took voting-related material from the Election Commission for his party.

The BLA provided necessary information about voters to the Block Level Officer (BLO) in preparing an error-free voting list.

He said the Election Commission had decided that in the next three months, the CEOs should prepare a Unique National Photo Voter ID card.