Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman on Sunday said that booth-level officers will be beaten up if they try to delete the names of genuine voters or include fake names during the proposed special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Tripura, PTI reported.

The Election Commission in October announced a pan-India revision of the voter lists. The exercise is underway in 12 states and Union Territories. Tripura is not included in the ongoing round.

In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll published on September 30.

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the rolls. Several petitioners had moved the Supreme Court against it.

Addressing a training programme in Agartala’s Indranagar for the Congress’ booth-level agents for the proposed exercise in the state, Barman said that the party wanted a transparent and error-free electoral roll, PTI reported.

But that the Opposition party will not allow what had “happened in Maharashtra, Bihar and Haryana” in Tripura, said the MLA representing the Agartala constituency.

The Congress has repeatedly accused the Election Commission of large-scale vote rigging, including in the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly polls held in 2024, alleging what they called “industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of national institutions.”

The Election Commission has rejected the allegations.

“The Congress has no objection if names of dead voters or foreign citizens are deleted from the electoral rolls, but any unethical practice to include fake or ghost voters, duplicate or triplicate names will not be allowed,” PTI quoted Barman as saying on Sunday.

He added that it was the poll panel’s duty to prepare error-free electoral rolls.

Barman also warned of dire consequences if booth-level officers attempted to adopt unethical practices to include fake names in the electoral rolls.

“Tripura is a small state where everybody knows everybody,” the news agency quoted him as saying. “If any BLO tries to delete the names of genuine voters or include any fake names under pressure from the ruling party, he or she will be beaten up publicly.”

Tripura is expected to head for Assembly polls in 2028.

Barman’s remarks came amid reports of booth-level officers being overburdened with work in the revision exercise in other states. At least eight suicides by booth-level officers and at least seven deaths have been reported in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan.

Booth-level officers are typically primary school teachers and anganwadi, or health care workers, who are employed by state governments. They are responsible for distributing and collecting enumeration forms as part of the revision exercise.

Each booth-level officer is responsible for maintaining the voter list for one polling booth, which can sometimes have as many as 1,500 registered voters. They are required to go door-to-door, check the identities of new voters and verify the details of those who have died or permanently moved out of an area.

On November 30, the Election Commission extended by one week the timeline for the exercise in the 12 states and Union Territories. The last date of submitting the forms was extended to December 11 from December 4.

The final electoral rolls are to be published on February 14.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court also issued directions to redress problems faced by booth-level officers during the revision of the electoral rolls.

The court asked the state governments to depute additional staff for the exercise so that the working hours of the booth-level officers can be “proportionately reduced” to alleviate their hardship.

Also read: I struggled to fill SIR forms. BLOs have it much worse