If the Election Commission's (EC) app troubled voters in Borivli constituency on Monday, the polling staff was clearly prepared for the contingency. In a first-ever attempt, the Returning Officer (RO) of the constituency developed an offline software that can locate names, booths and polling centres of voters whose names are missing from electoral lists at their voting centre — in just five seconds.

Data of 3,01,436 voters from this constituency was collated from the official voters' list along with other details such as addresses, voting centres, and polling booths. This software was created with the help of a private agency. "But we needed some tech-savvy people at the centres to operate this software as our BLOs (block-level officers) are not well-versed with computers. This led to the association with a college whose students could volunteer for us," said Sudam Pardeshi, RO at Borivli constituency. He said all students working on the software were trained on how to assist a group of voters.