The Chief Election Commissioner of India (ECI) on Thursday launched a two-day training program for Booth Level Agents (BLAs) from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to strengthen grassroot participation by National and State political parties, the poll panel said.

The training program, launched in view of the forthcoming elections in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, was attended by 229 BLAs (BLA-I and BLA-II) from 11 National and State political parties.

Advertisement

The programme was organised at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management in New Delhi.

Addressing the BLAs, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar 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 of Bihar was conducted on 16th-17th April, 2025 at IIIDEM when 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.T

The BLAs were also familiarised with 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.

The ECI has also started holding interactions with the Party Presidents of National and State political parties.

Earlier, the poll panel had also launched a two-day capacity-building training programme for Booth Level Officers, BLO Supervisors, Electoral Registration Officers from Haryana and NCT Of Delhi in which a total of 371 grassroots election officials including 306 BLOs from Bihar, 30 EROs and BLO Supervisors from Haryana, 35 EROs and BLO Supervisors from NCT of Delhi took part.