The Election Commission of India (ECI) introduced a feature called ‘Mark VIP’ in the app used by booth level officers (BLOs) in the middle of the ongoing special intensive revision exercise (SIR) in 16 states and three Union territories, HT has found.
HT reached out to ECI officials for a comment on why the feature was introduced and under what authority, but did not get a response till Thursday night. No such record of changes was available on the Android Playstore.
Records from the Apple Appstore showed that the update to the app was logged on July 31, with the descriptor “mark VIP elector related changes”.
Officials at Delhi’s chief electoral officer’s (CEO’s) office said that the app – named BLO App – was updated on July 30 with the new feature. “The ‘Mark VIP’ feature wasn’t included in the BLO app in 2025 when SIR was held in West Bengal. To be sure, the provision to mark some voters as VIP has existed in the EC rules and manual since 2018. In Delhi, for example, the list of VIP electors is about 3,000 strong, said a second official in the Delhi CEO’s office, requesting anonymity. The official added that there were around 1,000 VIP electors in the district.
It was introduced more than a month ago. “The CEO office cannot make any changes to the apps or the software. Rules say that VIP voters can be automatically added to the draft roll but they are not immune to claims and objections notices, which might explain why many prominent people were served logical discrepancy notices. “The feature ‘Mark VIP’ is like a consolidation exercise. “This means that the names of the VIP electors will be added to the electoral rolls irrespective of whether they have filled the enumeration forms. However, they will not be immune from being served notices.
Orders come directly from the commission,” said an official in the CEO’s office who did not want to be named. It helps the BLO to mark the person as VIP during verification,” said a member of the BLO association in West Bengal, requesting anonymity. Once a BLO marks an elector as VIP with an asterisk after visiting the residence of a voter, it is vetted by the AERO and ERO and subsequently by the office of the chief electoral officer, Delhi,” said a senior official from the New Delhi district. The second official from the Delhi CEO office cited above said BLOs were always given lists of VIP voters or voters from different age groups. “This has been done to ensure that we can facilitate them during the time of elections,” this official said. They will not have to visit hearing centres and they will be facilitated,” said the second official cited above.
