BLO platform holds protest rally in Kolkata in demand of immediate stoppage of SIR in West Bengal

Demanding stoppage of SIR and complaining about “inhumane stress”, a platform of BLOs -- the ‘BLO Adhikar Raksha Manch’, held a rally in Kolkata on Monday, claiming they are being subjected to “tremendous stress” and sought immediate stoppage of the SIR of electoral rolls in Bengal. Meanwhile, the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer’s office, led by the CEO Manoj Agarwal, holds a meeting with the Telecom Service Providers to seek out the server problems and the BLO app issues.

After a protest rally from College Street by the platform reached WB-CEO’s office in Dalhousie this afternoon, the BLOs protested in front of the CEO office. There was a scuffle-like situation with police, who guarded the entry of the CEO’s office, as the protesting BLOs and other government employees from various schools and colleges joined the protest. The platform tried to lock the entrance of the CEO’s office.

The platform claimed that the poll panel had not taken necessary steps to ease their workload and burdened them with digitization without training despite repeated requests, during the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls. The SIR started in Bengal on November 4.


A BLO from Kolkata’s Bansdroni’s 112 ward, said, “They were not told about digitization earlier. Without training, we have been asked to participate in the digitization process.”

“We have less time and a huge amount of digitization work. We are spending sleepless nights with server problems and tight deadlines,” another BLO of booth 155 said.

“There are hardly any teachers in school. How do we run the school and the students’ future are at stake as the BLOs are toiling the whole day,” a teacher of a government school in Sonarpur, said.

The Trinamool Congress has gone on the offensive against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) as several Booth Level Officers (BLOs) fell ill in North 24 Parganas’ Machlandapur, Bardhaman’s Katwa, Murshidabad’s Jangipur, and other districts due to the immense pressure of digitising Enumeration Forms (EFs). BLOs faced tight deadlines, slow servers, major glitches in the BLO app, and time-consuming digitisation processes.

Earlier, a BLO from Nadia district had died by suicide reportedly due to SIR work pressure and blamed the EC for "inhuman work pressure" in her suicide note. Prior to this, a woman BLO committed suicide in Jalpaiguri district. Another BLO had died due to brain stroke.