A booth-level officer in Meerut consumed poison on Tuesday evening with his family alleging he had told them that his seniors had threatened to suspend him if he failed to complete his SIR assignments by Wednesday.

Mohit Chaudhary, 25, a clerk in the irrigation department, was taken to a private hospital in Garh and later shifted to another hospital in Meerut city where his condition was stated to be critical.

“Mohit was deployed as a BLO for the SIR drive in the Cantonment area of Meerut. He had gone to the Pallavpurma polling booth to submit enumeration forms when he consumed poison. He had called a relative 30 minutes ago and told him that his superiors were threatening to suspend him if he did not meet his targets by today,” said a cousin of Mohit who didn’t want to be named.

Satya Prakash Singh, the assistant district returning officer, said: “We have come to know that a BLO has attempted suicide. We will probe whether he took the step because of problems in submitting enumeration forms or if there was some family
issue. There is no need to panic because the date of submission of the forms has been extended by eight days (till December 11).”

Sarvesh Singh, a BLO, committed suicide in Moradabad on November 30.

“I wanted to live but felt helpless and scared. I am unable to complete the SIR target and living in tension because I have no experience of doing such work,” Singh, 46, wrote in a purported suicide note in Hindi before hanging himself from a ceiling fan. He was an assistant teacher at Composite School, Jahidpur-Sikampur, in the Bharatpur Tanda block of Moradabad district.

Shobha Rani, 56, another BLO in Bijnor district, died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Moradabad on the night of November 29. Her husband, Kripal Saini, alleged that although she was unwell, local administrative officials deployed the Anganwadi worker as a BLO in Bijnor and ordered her to complete the data entry of 50 per cent of
the voters of her booth or “face the consequences”.

Sarvesh Kumar Gangwar, 47, a BLO, died of a heart attack at a primary school in Bareilly district on November 27. His family alleged that senior administrative officials had forced him to work overtime to complete SIR work.

Two more BLOs — Sudhir Kumar of Fatehpur and Vipin Kumar Yadav of Gonda — allegedly died by suicide on November 25 because of pressure to complete SIR
assignments.