Moumita Saha was in an AE Block voter’s house distributing enumeration forms for the special intensive revision when a frantic call came from her mother in Lake Town. Her ailing father had fallen and needed immediate hospitalisation. The booth-level officer (BLO) of Part 133 had to drop everything and rush.
Every BLO has had to juggle domestic responsibilities and sometimes even demands of their regular job, while racing against time to finish SIR duties. But Moumita’s father’s hospitalisation added an extra hurdle in the way of the teacher who settled in Salt Lake after marriage in 2005.
Yet, Moumita has been among the foremost in finishing her share of work within the deadlines set by the Election Commission of India (ECI), thereby earning a name in the corridors of the sub-divisional office, which is now operating as the electoral registration office for 116 Bidhannagar Assembly constituency.
“Please do not feature me. I have done nothing special. Every BLO has worked hard,” Moumita had cringed initially, on being approached by The Telegraph Salt Lake and relented only after long persuasion to share her experience.
Since the day her father fell, Moumita’s roster became a killing one. He was admitted in Tata Medical Center. “The next day, too, I could not do any work as my father’s situation was serious. There was so much running around to do between my Salt Lake home, our house in Lake Town, where my mother was alone, and the hospital. I hardly slept. Voters would call me when I was in the ICU where phone calls are not allowed. And in the afternoon, I often missed calls from the hospital as I was on the road. Ki je tokhon gyachhe ami boley bojhate parbo na,” the 45-year-old lady recalls.
But she was back on the road on Day III. “I would be in hospital all morning, rush back for a quick lunch and start knocking on doors from 2pm and finish the day’s work by 10pm. It felt awkward to visit people after 9pm but I did visit a few families even at 9.30pm and they all co-operated. My father would ask for me during the evening visiting hour but it was not possible to go again.”
The stress was so much that she had initially sought to be relieved of her duty but her request was not approved. “The authorities were extremely encouraging and supportive. I was told that even if I uploaded only two forms on some days, they would understand.” Seeing Moumita so stressed, her husband filled up both his and her form.
In several families, she noticed, the young members were submitting their own forms but did not help their elderly parents fill up theirs. “I was calling them repeatedly for collection but they kept saying they were not ready. In several such cases, I had to search for their names in the 2002 voter list myself,” she said, surprised and saddened at the neglect.
Her situation improved once her father was released from hospital. “By then, I had largely finished collection of forms. He is bed-ridden. So I would sit at his bedside in our Lake Town home and upload the data, thereby lending support to my mother while doing my work.”
Moumita has 1,084 forms in over 300 houses in her care but feels the job was not that difficult. “If the app worked smoothly, the work would have been really smooth. But it did not. That caused many of us to lose time,” she reflected.
With the deadline extended by a week by the ECI, the teacher of Bengali in a Patipukur school is using the extra days for a second round of revision. “Eto kore bujhiye, rough copy, photocopy, fair copy koreo lokey 2002 voter list theke tuktey bhul korechhe! There are less mistakes in the forms of domestic helps and caretakers,” she exclaimed.
There is a sizeable number of deceased and shifted voters in her part. “For cases where I did not get death certificates or people who have left Salt Lake, I got the empty forms countersigned by the booth-level agents of the political parties. They too have really cooperated with me. Sara para jene giyechhilo amar babar shorir kharap,” she signed off with a smile.