ECI trains BLAs from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to strengthen grassroot participation by National and State political parties

Punjab E News: The Election Commission of India has commenced the training of Booth Level agents (BLAs) from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in view of the forthcoming elections. 229 BLAS (BLA-I & BLA-II) from 11 National and State political parties are taking part in the 2-day training programme organised at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management, IIIDEM, New Delhi. The entire training programme was conducted bilingually in English and Tamil.

2. Chief Election Commissioner Shri Gyanesh Kumar addressed the BLAs in at the start of the training programme and underscored the importance of BLAs in the election processes and asserted that the training programme would help them fulfil their responsibilities as delineated in the Representation of People act, 1950 and 1951, Registration of Electors Rules 1960, Conduct of Election Rules 1961 and the manuals, guidelines and instructions issued by ECI from time to time. This is the second such batch of BLAs being trained at IIIDEM in the national capital. The first training programme for Booth Level Agents (BLA-I) of Bihar was conducted on 16th-17th April, 2025 at IIIDEM.

3. Through interactive sessions, the BLAs were given an overview of their appointment, roles, and responsibilities as per the legal framework. BLAs are appointed by National and State political parties and play an important role in ensuring error-free electoral rolls as per the provisions of the RP act, 1950. The BLAs were also familiarised in the use of the provision of first and second appeals under sections 24(a) and 24(b) of the RP Act 1950 in case they are aggrieved of the final electoral rolls as published.

4. The ECI has also started holding interactions with the Party Presidents of National and State political parties. Earlier, a total of 4,719 all-party meetings have been conducted including 40 meetings by CEOs, 800 by DEOs, and 3879 by EROs engaging over 28,000 representatives of various political parties.