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West Bengal: Another BLO dies allegedly by suicide, blames SIR work pressure in note
A booth-level officer died allegedly by suicide in West Bengal's Bankura district on Sunday, reported The Indian Express.
In a note found near his body, 53-year-old Haradhan Mandal said that mounting stress related to the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in the state had led him to take the step, the newspaper quoted unidentified police officials as saying.
Mandal's body was found by his family inside a classroom of a school, where he was the headmaster.
He was the booth-level officer for booth number 206 in Rajakata village of the Ranibandh block.
His family members alleged that he had been suffering from depression because of being unable to cope with the “immense workload” of the voter roll revision exercise.
“My father was suffering from various physical ailments,” Mandal's son, Soham Mandal, was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. “Despite that, he used to work on the SIR until 3 am or 4 am. On top of that, there were various other forms causing mental pressure.”
Soham Mandal said that his father “could no longer bear this mental strain”.
Haradhan Mandal's wife, Mala Mandal, claimed that he had not received help for the work related to the voter roll revision and “was forced to take this step”.
His body has been sent for post-mortem, reported The Hindu.
With this, at least 10 suicides of booth-level officers and two deaths due to stroke have been reported because of alleged work pressure in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan amid the revision of electoral rolls.
The Election Commission is conducting the revision of the electoral rolls in 12 states and Union Territories. Booth-level officers began distributing enumeration forms on November 4.
Overall, around 3.6 crore electors in the 11 states and Union Territories have been deleted so far in the exercise. The draft electoral roll for Uttar Pradesh is scheduled to be published on December 31.
The final electoral rolls for all states and Union Territories where the exercise is underway are to be published on February 14.
The task of preparing voter lists before elections is typically assigned to primary school teachers and anganwadi or health care workers, who are employed by state governments. They are required to go door-to-door and check the identities of new voters and verify the details of those who have died or permanently moved out of an area.
In the Election Commission's parlance, they are called booth-level officers. Each booth-level officer is responsible for maintaining the voter list for one polling booth, which can sometimes have as many as 1,500 registered voters.
Reacting to Mandal's death, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee said that the special intensive revision of electoral rolls should have been a “methodical process”, but has instead been “bulldozed through by a pliant, complicit Election Commission”.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's West Bengal observer Mangal Pandey blamed the TMC, saying that the leadership of the state's ruling party was “constantly pressuring the BLOs to do their work incorrectly”, reported The Indian Express.
“This pressure has led to several tragic incidents,” said Mandal. “The state government and the Trinamool party must take full responsibility for this.”
Source: Scroll
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