A booth-level officer died by suicide in Gonda, about 120km east of Lucknow, on Tuesday afternoon allegedly because of extreme pressure to complete the SIR exercise.
BLO Vipin Kumar Yadav was an assistant teacher in a government school in Jaitpur and lived in a rented house in Nawabganj. The local administration had deployed him for SIR duty in the Mankapur Assembly segment of the district.
The police said he consumed poison. He was taken to Gonda district hospital and then shifted to King George Medical University, Lucknow. He died during treatment.
In a video circulating on social media, a person resembling Yadav is seen blaming his senior officers for forcing him to carry out the SIR work despite his unwillingness to do it.
Priyanka Niranjan, the district magistrate of Gonda, said: “It is an unfortunate incident.” But she didn’t confirm the reason behind Yadav taking the extreme step.
Earlier in the day, Sudhir Kumar, a village-level revenue official assigned to supervise BLOs, died by suicide in Fatehpur when his seniors allegedly refused to grant him leave for his wedding on Wednesday.
A relative of Kumar told reporters: “The officers sent their messengers to his house to threaten him and warn that he would be suspended if he went for his wedding before completing the SIR work.”