A political slugfest has erupted between the CPM and the Congress in Kerala over the suicide of a booth-level officer allegedly because of work pressure related to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

Aneesh George, 44, a BLO in the Payyannur Assembly constituency of Kannur, was found hanging in his house on Sunday. His family blamed his suicide on the intense pressure to complete the SIR enumeration process by the December 4 deadline.

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said the role of CPM workers in George’s suicide should also be examined. “We came to know that George was threatened after a Congress booth-level agent accompanied him for enumeration. George received threats from the CPM workers, which led him to end his life,” Satheesan alleged.

CPM’s Kannur district secretary K.K. Ragesh said attempts to misinterpret the tragedy for political gains must be called out and rejected.

Ragesh said George’s death was not an isolated incident. “There were similar suicides of BLOs in Rajasthan and Bengal. BLOs are under severe strain because they are given targets to complete in a short period,” he said.

Adding fuel to the fire, TV channels on Monday aired a leaked audio message of an electoral registration officer in Pathanamthitta district warning BLOs of dire
consequences if they did not meet the target.

On Monday, 35,000 BLOs in the state under the aegis of various trade unions of state government employees, boycotted SIR work and held protests at the chief electoral office in Thiruvananthapuram and the district collectorates. They demanded that authorities refrain from exerting excessive pressure on BLOs and consider postponing the SIR in view of the local body elections due on December 9 and 11.