When Nirupama Tripathy, a Booth Level Officer (BLO) in Odisha’s Dhamnagar Assembly seat, opened the app she was using for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, she discovered at least 227 Form 7 applications seeking deletion of voters’ names uploaded using her credentials without, she says, her knowledge.Tripathy wasn’t the only one. Several BLOs in Dhamnagar’s Notified Area Council – an Urban Local Body, alongside municipalities and municipal corporations – claimed multiple Form 7 applications similarly uploaded in their names.AdvertisementOn September 4, 10 such BLOs registered a police complaint and approached the Bhadrak District Collector. On September 7, the BJD, the principal opposition party, submitted a memorandum to Odisha Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) R S Gopalan raising the issue. The BLOs submitting a complaint to police. (Express photo)Now, after a preliminary inquiry, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has suspended Santosh Kumar Nayak, the Executive Officer of the Dhamnagar council and the area’s Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO) for the SIR exercise, who allegedly used the credentials of BLOs to submit the bulk deletion applications.The applications were also withdrawn, with most of the voters against whom Form 7s were allegedly filed fraudulently in Dhamnagar figuring in Odisha’s final electoral roll, released on September 21.AdvertisementAlso Read | Odisha SIR: 20 lakh deletions in draft voter list; Oppn flags exclusion over 'minor anomalies'As per officials, more than 90% of these applications concerned Muslim voters. Dhamnagar, located in northeast Odisha, is one of the few Assembly seats in the state with a sizeable Muslim population.The BLOs who spoke to The Indian Express said almost all voters flagged via Form 7s had been cleared by them in the enumeration round, and also mapped to the 2002 SIR.Apart from the large presence of Muslim names in the applications, what raised suspicion, sources said, was the high number of Form 7s – over 3,000 – from one constituency of Dhamnagar. In contrast, across Odisha’s 147 Assembly constituencies, a total of 20,707 names were deleted on the basis of Form 7 applications, working out to an average of 141 voters per seat.Also Read | 30 lakh migrant workers may miss voter roll revision in Odisha, BJD cautions Election CommissionAfter the BJD’s memorandum, the CEO office sought a report from the Additional Sub-Collector, Bhadrak, who is the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) for Dhamnagar. “The allegations raised in the memorandum are of a sensitive nature and therefore require immediate examination,” the September 8 letter said.A source said: “The ERO verified the issue internally and prima facie found that the forms had been processed in an unauthorized manner.”On September 21, the CEO wrote to the Bhadrak District Collector saying the ECI had “conveyed its approval for suspension and initiation of disciplinary proceeding” against Nayak, “in connection with… allegations of unauthorised use of BLO credentials / OTPs and unauthorised submission / uploading of Form-7 applications during the ongoing SIR exercise”.On Monday, the Odisha Housing and Urban Development Department issued the official order suspending Nayak.Must Read | SIR 2026 revisions reach Delhi, Maharashtra, and more: All you need to knowCEO Gopalan refused to comment on the matter.Speaking to The Indian Express, BLO Tripathy said: “I shared OTPs with the AERO and his staff at least three times. I thought it’s for verification purposes. When I found out about processing of 227 Form 7s for deletion of voters on my behalf, I spoke to other BLOs, and they said they were seeing a similar situation. This prompted us to take action.”An anganwadi worker, Tripathy was the BLO for Booth No. 153 in Dhamnagar Assembly constituency.In their police complaint, Tripathy and the other BLOs submitted: “Despite (us knowing) all the works on the BLO App, the AERO took OTP from us (on) the pretext of verification, and processed Form 7 using our credentials to remove names of genuine voters… The AERO has also been pressurizing us through our supervisor for completion of early field verification of the names. He threatened to issue a show cause if we (don’t) follow the order.”Tripathy said the people against whom Form 7 applications were filed using her credentials were all “valid voters”, who were also in the 2002 SIR, and that of the 227 such names, all were Muslim barring three-four. “We approached police as we wanted to convey that we had no role in deleting any names. We would have been targeted otherwise by those who faced deletion,” she said.Also Read | ‘Wrongful deletion’ of 9.8 lakh names during pre-SIR exercise in Odisha, CEO orders strict verificationSk Ramjan Alli, an Urdu teacher and the BLO for Booth No. 154 in Dhamnagar, said 130 Form 7s were filed in his name.While he was not among the 10 BLOs who lodged a police complaint, Alli said he was part of a group who raised concerns with the AERO office. “The AERO sought OTPs though our supervisor and I shared them twice. More than 90% of the names against whom Form 7s were uploaded using my credentials had been found to be genuine during the enumeration process. Their names were also in the 2002 SIR,” Alli told The Indian Express.Another BLO, Binjulata Majhi, who handled Booth No. 155, said 190 Form 7 applications were filed against her name.An official of the CEO office said the Bhadrak District Collector has also been asked to forward a full-fledged “draft charge” against the AERO, and a detailed inquiry has been ordered against him.The SIR numbers There were 20,000 Muslim voters among Dhamnagar constituency’s total of 2.49 lakh at the start of the SIR exercise. Around 7.19% (17,956 voters) were deleted during the enumeration phase. In the final roll, released on September 21, the constituency’s count is 2.31 lakh voters.you may likeOpinion | I have voted for three decades. Why is my SIR incomplete?Dhamnagar has been won the past two times by the BJP, by narrow margins of over 4,000 and 8,000-plus votes, in 2019 and 2024, respectively.The BJD, which was the runner-up both times, says the prima facie findings regarding Form 7s “need a thorough probe”. BJD general secretary Bijay Nayak said: “If the allegations are proved to be true, it raises a serious question on the credibility of the electoral process. Given the situation in Dhamnagar, all deletions carried out through Form 7s in Odisha should be reviewed. Not a single eligible voter should be excluded from the voter list.”Overall, the total number of voters in Odisha went down from 3.33 crore before the SIR began to 3.16 crore in the final roll.