Grassroots poll officials in West Bengal - at the centre of a row over mental health and working conditions during the revision of voter lists - staged a massive protest Monday afternoon outside the Chief Electoral Officer's Kolkata office. Visuals shared by news agency ANI showed a mob of booth-level officers, BLOs, and other protesters pushing back at police in riot gear.
The protest was led by the BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee and broke shortly before the BJP's Suvendhu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition, and a group of lawmakers arrived for a scheduled meeting. The police shut down the area but the protesters tried to push through nonetheless; some tried to breach barricades as others 'go back' at the BJP lawmakers.
Tensions ramped up after a group of BJP workers also turned up; both sides raised slogans and counter-slogans - the opposition party has accused the ruling Trinamool of causing poll workers' deaths by denying them resources to do their job - as the cops tried to maintain order.
Despite the protests, Adhikari and the BJP leaders managed to enter the building.
"The Trinamool government that speaks against the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) ... why would they pay an honorarium to booth-level officers?" Adhikari said afterwards, echoing comments by the party's state unit boss, Samik Bhattacharya, who called on EC boss Gyanesh Kumar to "come and see for himself the conditions under which BLOs are working..."
Bhattacharya's sharp remarks followed letter from the EC to police to offer more security for BLOs.
Neither the Trinamool nor the Bengal administration has commented on the protest yet, though the party has decried the SIR as an "exclusionary" exercise to "push Bengalis out" off the roll and said Gyanesh Kumar had "blood on his hands".
Several BLOs - in Bengal and other states where voter re-verification exercises are being carried out - have spoken about pressure, poor working conditions, and low pay (Rs 1,000 per month) and the toll on their health and daily lives.
NDTV Special | Deaths, Suicides, Resignations: BLOs Pushed To Edge
BLOs are ground-level workers who go door-to-door to add new voters, correct details, and remove duplicate or ineligible names, often travelling long distances despite holding day jobs.
NDTV Special | Long Hours, Little Pay, Extreme Pressure: A BLO's Life
And, over the past few weeks multiple BLO deaths have been reported, in many cases exposing grim realities.
A sobbing 46-year-old school teacher from Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad, for example, left behind a video begging forgiveness from his family. In another (less tragic) example from last week, Pinky Singh from Uttar Pradesh's Noida quit, saying it was impossible to retain her job while also overseeing verification of 1,179 voters in a residential colony 10 km away.
READ | "Look After My Kids": Video Of UP Poll Official Before Suicide
BLO deaths have also been reported from Kerala - Aneesh George died by suicide; Rajasthan - Hariom Bairwa died after allegedly being put under pressure by senior poll officials; and Gujarat - four school teachers died after dealing with 'disproportionate and unbearable workloads during SIR process'.
'Imposed tyranny', says opposition
Trinamool boss Mamata Banerjee has ripped into the EC on this issue. She demanded it halt the exercise over "inhuman" work pressure. They are "operating far beyond human limits", she declared, criticising the poll panel for intimidating workers.
READ | 'BLOs Operating Beyond Human Limits': Mamata Banerjee To EC Chief
The re-verification of voter rolls in Bengal - months before the election - has up a furious political and legal spat, with the opposition, including the Trinamool, accusing the EC and the BJP, in power at the centre, of voter manipulation to win polls.
