At a school in Nagpada, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are stationed at makeshift desks piled with forms and photocopies as part of the preparatory exercise for the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Assisting them closely is 46-year-old Shaikh Nasir Hussain, Congress ward general secretary, who has taken on the role of an informal coordinator between residents and election officials.
Hussain actively tracks residents rather than waiting for them to arrive at verification camps. Prior to the arrival of officials in any locality, he identifies suitable buildings for camps, informs residents, and encourages families to gather necessary documents. According to BLOs, local political workers with deep knowledge of neighbourhoods, old records, and family histories have significantly eased the verification process by guiding residents through documentation, locating records online, and identifying previous electoral entries.
Officials, however, maintain that while such assistance is useful, all information is independently verified through official databases before final mapping is completed.
Across Mumbai, this collaboration has evolved into a hybrid verification mechanism combining administrative systems with local memory. The Election Commission is set to conduct the full Special Intensive Revision in Maharashtra, covering 98.6 million voters, between June 30 and July 29.
For Booth Level Officers, many of whom are employees of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation or government departments, the scale of pre-revision mapping is extensive. Each officer is responsible for verifying nearly 1,000 voters. Several officials acknowledged that political party workers have become critical support in managing the workload, reducing nearly half of the operational burden, although final verification remains strictly official.
In Mulund West’s Saptrishi Complex, a family attempting to reconstruct decades of residential movement—from Dombivli until 1998, Coimbatore for nearly ten years, and then back to Mumbai after 2008—initially struggled to identify their presence on the 2002 electoral rolls. The breakthrough came through local Bharatiya Janata Party worker Sunil Desai, who, after speaking with the family, traced their earlier address in Dombivli and successfully located their names in old voter records.
In Riddhi Siddhi Society, political workers assisted officials in identifying residents who had died, relocated abroad, married and shifted homes, or were tenants in occupied flats. In Deonar, resident Siddhesh Tijare stated that party workers helped his family recover older records after years spent overseas.
Political involvement in the process is also driven by organisational strategy. With no immediate elections, parties are using the exercise to strengthen grassroots networks. Last month, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner Ashwini Bhide appealed to political parties and elected representatives to support the Special Intensive Revision process, a call that received an enthusiastic and competitive response.
In Nagpada, Congress workers established a help desk even before the arrival of Booth Level Officers, organising residents by ward and ensuring documents were prepared in advance. Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Amin Patel noted that voters displaced by redevelopment projects are among the most vulnerable due to demolished buildings and reconstructed housing that complicates older records.
Bharatiya Janata Party State Vice President Keshav Upadhye stated that party workers have been directed to conduct awareness campaigns, particularly targeting voters registered after 2002. In Mulund, Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Legislative Assembly Mihir Kotecha said teams are reaching nearly 1,800 housing societies. Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray faction) leader Haroon Khan has also been conducting awareness sessions in western suburbs.
Across party lines, a common calculation prevails: voters tend to remember those who assist them during administrative difficulties. For election officials, these intermediaries have become increasingly indispensable in managing on-ground complexities.
However, resident responses remain mixed. Booth Level Officer Rekha Mehta observed that some citizens remain indifferent, with a few even expressing willingness to be removed from electoral rolls due to lack of interest or inconvenience.
As the preparatory phase concludes ahead of the formal Special Intensive Revision beginning June 30, one reality has become evident across Mumbai: in a metropolis of nearly one crore voters, the functioning of electoral democracy increasingly depends not only on official machinery but also on the informal networks of local political workers navigating the city’s dense neighbourhoods.
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