A government school teacher in Gujarat’s Kodinar district working as a BLO died by suicide on Friday, with a note he left behind citing mental stress and fatigue caused by the SIR exercise.
Two days ago, the principal of a primary school in Kheda district died of a heart attack in his sleep, prompting his family to allege “excessive work pressure” because of the SIR.
The deaths of two BLOs have shocked Gujarat’s teaching community and unions
in the state have urged teachers to stay away from the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.
In Kodinar on Friday morning after Arvindbhai Muljibhai Vadher was found hanging, a WhatsApp message purportedly from the taluka mamlatdar’s office asking teachers involved in the SIR drive to work till late at night and one teacher replying that he was awake till 4am has gone viral on social media.
The suicide note of Vadher, a teacher since July 5, 2010, written in Gujarati and addressed to his wife, mentions mental stress and continuous fatigue in the past few days because of SIR-related work.
The note says that documents related to the SIR were kept in his bag and should be handed over to the school.
Vadher’s is not an isolated case. On the intervening night of November 18 and 19, 50-year-old Rameshbhai Parmar, the principal of Navapura Primary School in Kheda, died in his sleep. The BLO’s family alleged that long working hours and stress caused by the SIR had resulted in the heart attack. Parmar’s daughter, Shilpa, said her father had been doing online entries till midnight before going to sleep and never woke up.
In Kheda, the taluka education office is conducting an internal inquiry into Parmar’s death, sources said. A senior police officer told reporters that the death seemed natural and no inquiry had been instituted by law enforcement as there was no complaint.
The anger over the strenuous SIR exercise and the deaths attributed to it has caused widespread resentment in Gujarat. Aniruddhsinh, the president of the Primary Education Federation, has demanded compensation of ₹1 crore for the families of the deceased and the formulation of clear guidelines for BLOs.
Ninety per cent of Gujarat’s BLO, or 50,000 officers, are teachers. Sources in Gujarat said the BLOs were to get ₹2,000 per month for their SIR assignments.
Pankti Jog, executive secretary of the Mahati Adhikar Gujarat Pahel, an organisation promoting transparency in public programmes, told The Telegraph that the BLOs are under tremendous stress, which is apparent from their voice when they call the organisation’s RTI helpline.
The helpline has been receiving more than 20 calls from BLOs and over 60 from voters daily, Jog said. The BLOs have many queries, like what they are supposed to do if the names of voters are not found on the 2002 voters’ list, when the last SIR was done, or how many forms they have to give to a voter.
Sources said the BLOs received only a day’s training and were on many occasions ill-equipped to handle the queries of voters.
Jog said: “They are under tremendous pressure. Each BLO has to reach around 1,000 to 1,200 voters, get back the forms and then upload the details on the portal. All this has to be done in three weeks as there was a delay of a week in the printing of forms. They are facing agitated voters. They are having to deal with all the negatives on the ground.”
Gujarat Congress president Amit Chavda attributed the deaths of BLOs to “pressure from the ruling BJP”.
Isudan Gadhvi, the Aam Aadmi Party’s Gujarat president, told this newspaper that they have urged the BLOs to get in touch with the AAP with their problems. Alleging that the exercise is being undertaken so that the BJP can win the upcoming taluka and district panchayat polls and elections to municipal corporations due early next year, Gadhvi said the SIR could have been conducted over a couple of months instead of one month.
Gujarat BJP spokesperson Yagnesh Dave, however, said BLO Vadher “may have had personal problems or that some officer could have been pressurising him”.