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.
Eases enumeration process for ‘VIP holders’
“The feature ‘Mark VIP’ is like a consolidation exercise. The official added that there were around 1,000 VIP electors in the district.
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.
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. It was introduced more than a month ago. “The CEO office cannot make any changes to the apps or the software. No such record of changes was available on the Android Playstore.
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.
Orders come directly from the commission,” said an official in the CEO’s office who did not want to be named. 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”. It helps the BLO to mark the person as VIP during verification,” said a member of the BLO association in West Bengal, requesting anonymity.
