The Congress has castigated the Election Commission and the BJP for the deaths of several booth-level officers involved in the special intensive revision of voter lists in 12 states and Union
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, posted a Dainik Bhaskar report on the deaths and wrote: “Under the guise of SIR, chaos has been unleashed across the country — the result? In three weeks, 16 BLOs have lost their lives. Heart attacks, stress, suicides — SIR is no reform, it’s an imposed tyranny.”
He added: “The ECI (poll panel) has created such a system where citizens have to flip through thousands of scanned pages of a 22-year-old voter list just to find themselves. The intent is clear — the right voters get exhausted and give up, and vote theft continues unabated.
“India builds cutting-edge software for the world, yet India’s Election Commission is still stuck on erecting a jungle of paper.
The biggest problem that many aggrieved BLOs have cited is the challenge of digitising the enumeration forms they receive in the face of glitches and connectivity issues.
Their stress is compounded by administrative fiats relating to daily targets, political pressure from the parties and anxious voters — given that one of the goals of the SIR is to weed out illegal immigrants, a sensitive issue in border states like Bengal.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge posted on X: “According to ground realities, these numbers (of BLO deaths) are far higher than what’s reported, which is extremely alarming. Who will deliver justice to these families?
“The BJP is busy lapping up the cream of power through theft, while @ECISVEEP stands as a mute spectator watching the spectacle.
“The hasty... forced implementation of SIR without any planning brings back memories of demonetisation and the COVID lockdown.
“Abusing power to force institutions into suicides, tearing the Constitution to shreds, and weakening democracy — this is the consequence of the BJP’s hunger for power.
“Enough now!! If we still don’t wake up, no one can save the last pillars of democracy from collapsing. Those who remain silent on SIR and vote theft are culpable in the deaths of these innocent BLOs.”
Other national parties like the CPM too have spoken out in the recent past, especially after a BLO’s suicide in Kerala’s Kannur district on November 16.
The poll panel, chief electoral officers and the district election officers have responded to the criticism by publicising the work of BLOs who have met their targets before time, and giving out awards such as “BLO of the Day”.
The biggest problem that many aggrieved BLOs have cited is the challenge of digitising the enumeration forms they receive in the face of glitches and connectivity issues.
Their stress is compounded by administrative fiats relating to daily targets, political pressure from the parties and anxious voters — given that one of the goals of the SIR is to weed out illegal immigrants, a sensitive issue in border states like Bengal.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge posted on X: “According to ground realities, these numbers (of BLO deaths) are far higher than what’s reported, which is extremely alarming. Who will deliver justice to these families?
“The BJP is busy lapping up the cream of power through theft, while @ECISVEEP stands as a mute spectator watching the spectacle.
“The hasty... forced implementation of SIR without any planning brings back memories of demonetisation and the COVID lockdown.
“Abusing power to force institutions into suicides, tearing the Constitution to shreds, and weakening democracy — this is the consequence of the BJP’s hunger for power.
“Enough now!! If we still don’t wake up, no one can save the last pillars of democracy from collapsing. Those who remain silent on SIR and vote theft are culpable in the deaths of these innocent BLOs.”
Other national parties like the CPM too have spoken out in the recent past, especially after a BLO’s suicide in Kerala’s Kannur district on November 16.
The poll panel, chief electoral officers and the district election officers have responded to the criticism by publicising the work of BLOs who have met their targets before time, and giving out awards such as “BLO of the Day”.
“If the intent were pure, the list would be digital, searchable, and machine-readable — and the ECI would take adequate time to focus on transparency and accountability, instead of blindly pushing work in a 30-day frenzy.
“SIR is a calculated ploy — where citizens are being harassed and the deaths of BLOs from unnecessary pressure are dismissed as ‘collateral damage’. This is not a failure, it’s a conspiracy — a sacrifice of democracy to protect those in power.”
Several of the alleged suicides have been reported from Bengal, prompting chief minister Mamata Banerjee to ask the poll panel “how many more lives will be lost”. She has attributed at least 28 deaths to the SIR.
The BJP has played the deaths down, its Bengal president Samik Bhattacharya saying that “even a snakebite” is now blamed on the Election Commission, and the party’s national IT head Amit Malviya accusing Mamata of guarding her “infiltrator empire”.
One BLO death each in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat and Rajasthan has been reported as a suicide, prompting some BLOs — deputed government employees such as schoolteachers — to officially stop work in protest in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
In Uttar Pradesh, several BLOs are facing action for shirking work or asking to be excused on the grounds that they can’t manage this additional work in addition to their day jobs.
Each BLO has to cover around 1,000 voters in a month. That itself might not be an arduous task.
The biggest problem that many aggrieved BLOs have cited is the challenge of digitising the enumeration forms they receive in the face of glitches and connectivity issues.
Their stress is compounded by administrative fiats relating to daily targets, political pressure from the parties and anxious voters — given that one of the goals of the SIR is to weed out illegal immigrants, a sensitive issue in border states like Bengal.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge posted on X: “According to ground realities, these numbers (of BLO deaths) are far higher than what’s reported, which is extremely alarming. Who will deliver justice to these families?
“The BJP is busy lapping up the cream of power through theft, while @ECISVEEP stands as a mute spectator watching the spectacle.
“The hasty... forced implementation of SIR without any planning brings back memories of demonetisation and the COVID lockdown.
“Abusing power to force institutions into suicides, tearing the Constitution to shreds, and weakening democracy — this is the consequence of the BJP’s hunger for power.
“Enough now!! If we still don’t wake up, no one can save the last pillars of democracy from collapsing. Those who remain silent on SIR and vote theft are culpable in the deaths of these innocent BLOs.”
Other national parties like the CPM too have spoken out in the recent past, especially after a BLO’s suicide in Kerala’s Kannur district on November 16.
The poll panel, chief electoral officers and the district election officers have responded to the criticism by publicising the work of BLOs who have met their targets before time, and giving out awards such as “BLO of the Day”.