NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Monday took cognisance after an audio recording of a Booth Level Officer surfaced on social media, in which he expressed work-related stress amid the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll in Kerala.Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Rathan Kelkar and District Collector Chethan Kumar Meena held a video conference with the BLO, Antony Varghese, to address his grievances.
“An audio message has been circulated on social media recently, in which a Booth Level Officer (BLO) expressed work-related stress arising from duties connected to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls,” a press release from the district collector (election) read.“Taking immediate cognisance of the matter, Chief Electoral Officer Shri Rathan Kelkar and District Collector Shri Chethan Kumar Meena jointly held a video conference with Shri Antony Varghese, BLO of Booth No. 110 under Poonjar LAC, to address his grievances. During the interaction, Shri Antony Varghese conveyed his willingness to continue his duties as BLO. Nevertheless, he was offered the option to discontinue his SIR responsibilities if he so desired. The Chief Electoral Officer assured that all necessary support would be extended to him to ensure the smooth discharge of his duties,” it added.This comes as several BLOs have either committed suicide or died unnaturally amid the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls in 12 states across India, including Kerala, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.Meanwhile, booth-level officers scuffled with police personnel on Monday while trying to enter the CEO’s office in Kolkata during a demonstration to protest against alleged excessive work pressure.According to a senior official, members of the BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee took out a procession from College Square in north Kolkata, carrying locks and fetters to symbolically close the main entrance of the building in which the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) is housed.The protesting BLOs raised slogans against the Election Commission, alleging that they were forced to hold the procession as the “poll panel did not respond to their complaints of intense and inhuman work pressure during the SIR exercise.”“BLOs have been directed to complete tasks within a short period, though the same work usually takes more than two years,” a functionary claimed.The committee also alleged that BLOs were falling sick and that two of them died by suicide due to stress.Meanwhile, the TMC also attacked the Election Commission for conducting the exercise in a “rushed, haphazard and opaque manner.”TMC MP Saket Gokhale urged the poll body to protect the booth-level officers, safeguard the rights of voters, and be transparent about the Special Intensive Revision process.“Is cruelty essential for doing SIR? Across Bengal and the rest of India, BLOs tasked with SIR are dying of exhaustion or by suicide. A process that should be given a few months is being hastily done in 30 days,” Gokhale said.“We’ve been clear: we have no problem with the purpose of SIR, which is to clean up the voter list. We are, however, strongly opposed to the rushed, haphazard and opaque manner in which it is being done in Bengal,” he said.“SIR duty should not be a death sentence for BLOs,” he said, adding, “SIR should not become a pretext for deleting legitimate voters.”Gokhale pointed out that the SIR was not done in Delhi, Haryana and Maharashtra, the three states that went to polls after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.“Why then is the ECI rushing to do it within 30 days in Bengal?” he asked.He said the BLOs should be allowed to work without stress, and people should be given enough time to understand the process and locate their documents.“If the ECI is genuinely independent, it should protect BLOs, safeguard the rights of voters, and be transparent about the SIR process,” he said.“But the actions of the ECI in Bengal show that ‘cleaning the voter list’ is just a facade. In reality, the way SIR is being done shows that the clear agenda is to create panic and rig the system to benefit the BJP,” he added.
