As BLOs protest, Bengal CEO says no one has been suspended

Kolkata: Booth-level officers (BLOs) held a protest outside the office of the West Bengal chief electoral officer (CEO) Monday, demanding stoppage of the Special Intensive Revision of electrical rolls citing "inhuman" work pressure.

CEO Manoj Agarwal sought to placate the BLOs by calling them "the real heroes" and "foot soldiers" of the SIR drive and said not a single BLO has been suspended in the state over negligence or disobedience. On reports of BLO suicides, Agarwal said he has sought the post-mortem and police reports and will get in touch with the Election Commission of India once he got the details and take necessary action.

Monday's protest was held under the banner of the BLO Adhikar Raksha Manch. Employees from several schools and colleges joined the protest and there was a scuffle like situation as police tried to stop the protestors from entering the CEO's office.


A 13-member team of protesting BLOs and government employees entered the CEO's office to submit a memorandum. Additional CEO Dibyendu Das said only four of them were BLOs.

Agarwal acknowledged that many BLOs were working beyond office hours,. "The Election Commission of India is appreciating their dedication and hard work," he said.

The SIR process started in Bengal on November 4. According to additional CEO Arindam Niyogi, BLOs have so far distributed around 99.76% enumeration forms to eligible electors. Till date, 59.39% of the forms have been digitised, while 1.35%, or over 1.03 million, forms have been identified by BLOs as "uncollectible" as they could not trace the voters.

At least 121 BLOs have completed the digitisation process, while 5,742 have completed above 90% and 7,928 are in the 80-90% range.

Meanwhile, Agarwal held a meeting with telecom service providers to address server problems and BLO app issues.

CM writes to CEC

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday wrote to the chief election commissioner, enquiring about a proposal by the WB CEO to recruit 1,000 data entry operators and set up polling booths inside private housing complexes.

"It has recently come to light that the CEO, West Bengal, has directed district election officers not to engage contractual data entry operators and Bangla Sahyata Kendra staff for SIR-related or other election-related data work. Simultaneously, the CEO's office has floated a request for proposal for hiring 1,000 data entry operators and 50 software developers for a period of one year," the CM wrote in her letter.