They’re coming to your house, handing out forms and explaining how to fill them up. But for all you know, your house could be their hundredth today. They could have been on the streets from 6.30am, won’t reach home before 11pm, and the cup of tea you’re wondering whether or not to offer could be their lunch.
Such is the life of BLOs. These Booth Level Officers have been going door-to-door since November 4 to help voters with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls at the behest of the Election Commission (EC). Before November, they were regular nine-to-five government employees, but are clocking countless hours now to help voters. Not all residents are grateful for their services, though.
Herculean task
Aparajita Mukherjee, a resident and BLO of Labony Estate, has undertaken duty at election booths before, but she says that is a cakewalk compared to this.
“Booth work is a matter of a day and a half. This work is month after month. Our desk work started in September. I’m otherwise an English teacher but my students in school are suffering due to my absence. My own daughter is in Class II and her exams are on but I’m out all day and night so when can I teach her?” she asks.
Residents can be rude, too. “We are working tirelessly, and residents act irritated if we land up at hours unsuitable to them! Labony has an educated populace but, clearly, education has nothing to do with manners,” she says.
Her biggest challenge is homes with super senior citizens. “Some are taking half an hour to get out of bed, use their walkers and reach the door to answer the bell. It’s wasting precious time when we’re chasing a deadline,” Aparajita says.
“The EC has instructed us not to hand over forms to ayahs, but who else do we give them to if the bed-ridden resident is living alone? Their NRI children are calling and asking me to fill up their forms and some are too old to even sign. I’m having to take their fingerprints in the presence of BLA (block-level agents),” she said. The BLAs are representatives of various parties and are accompanying BLOs around.
Kasturi Choudhuri is so hard pressed for time she’s having to wake residents up from their sleep at night with her doorbells. “I’m having to visit people even at 10pm as I have a deadline to meet. Often I’m climbing four stories of a co-operative building only to find the flats under lock and key. We have to visit every home three times, after which we have to leave a notice for the residents. It wastes time and is strenuous,” says the BLO working around Our Lady Queen of the Missions School.
Swati Saha, working around New Town’s Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College is so busy she’s struggling to get even fours of sleep a night.
Manoranjan Mandal isn’t amused by the work either. “After studying hard for top qualifications, it hurts our dignity to go door-to-door like salesmen. But we are government servants and must comply with what we have been assigned,” says the BLO from the Mahisbathan area.
Most wanted
Sajal Ojha, a BLO in the Duttabad area, says his phone is ringing non-stop – some can’t understand the form, some have completed it and are asking him to pick it up…. “Residents of this area aren’t very educated, so 60-70 per cent are filing them up wrong, and I’m having to make two to three visits to correct them. Some I’m having to fill out myself. My voice is hoarse and I’m carrying paracetamol around with me,” he says.
Moreover, his office – the department of higher education — also keeps calling up for work. “There’s no time for a lunch break; naake-mukhe kichu gunje beriye pori,” he says.
At times, he is sitting at a central location and having people come to him for submissions instead. “The physical strain is less this way, but then it’s like getting mobbed by tens of shouting people at a time, each demanding to be tended to before others,” Sajal says, wiping his brow.
Pratik Kumar, who is working around Jal Vayu Vihar, says a resident or two has been grumbling about the fact that he speaks Hindi and not Bengali. “We are central government employees and aren’t required to know the vernacular. But then others are speaking to me in broken Hindi as best as they can, and I appreciate their effort. Most residents are polite are offer me tea or cola,” he says.
He too has been holding centralised camps at Jal Vayu Vihar for collection of forms. “It’s saving time as more than 50 people came forward at my first such camp on Monday. Else, it’s tiring climbing so many stairs. I feel bad for the elderly citizens on BLO duty,” says Pratik.
Privacy at risk
BLO Priya Chakraborty is struggling to navigate through New Town. “We have no transport, the street numbers are confusing, and I’m walking five to six hours a day looking for addresses. I’m on the streets from 8am to 10pm and can barely stand straight when I reach home. It’s inhumane,” she says. The whole time that Priya’s out, her 10-year-old daughter is home alone.
Many of the forms Priya has received from the EC only have addresses like ‘New Town Action Area 1’. “I’m going through hell tracing phone numbers of such people, and when I finally manage to call them, they accuse me. Someone told me: ‘Apnara shaitani kore form dyan ni’,” she says, visibly hurt. “Some are irritated if we ring the bell twice. I wouldn’t have managed if it wasn’t for the help from the BLAs and the secretary of CE Block.”
But what Priya is absolutely livid about is that the BLOs’ phone numbers have been made public on the portal without their consent. “It’s criminal to do this, especially when women’s private numbers are involved. Thousands of random people now have our numbers, and it is up for misuse,” she complains.
“I have already started getting ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ messages from voters once their formalities complete, and who knows what other messages they will send next,” says the teacher.
Digital Hurdle
Aparajita, another teacher, says they are good with chalk and duster, but expecting them to do data entry opens the door to clerical errors. The information and pictures collected from the forms have to be uploaded to the portal by the BLOs at the end of the day.
“How can we enter 1,500 entries using the tiny screens of our phones?” she asks. “Plus, with all of us trying to upload the information together late at night, the site keeps hanging or takes ages to upload.”
Tuhin Samanata, BLO from Balaka Abasan, is not as irritated by voters’ mistakes. “I’ve been trained at this for four to five days, not them. Still, the training made the work appear very simple, whereas we are facing practical challenges on the ground,” he says, adding that the biggest challenge is uploading the information, especially photos. “It would be easier on laptops, but most of us only have phones, and the internet speed fluctuates too,” he says.
When Papia Howladar in Sukantanagar runs out of patience, she asks voters to fill out their form online instead. “What else do I do if they make too many mistakes on their forms and I’m out of spares?” she asks, adding that the thought of uploading pictures gives her nightmares.
Dubious Voters
Some BLOs have been received by friendly residents. “Many are referring to me as ‘sir’ and offering tea. In NBCC Vibgyor Towers, a retired CBI officer sat me down and, with great interest, enquired about our process,” says Tuhin. “But 20 per cent are irritated, taking the form and shooing us from the gate itself. Some are commenting that the SIR is a futile exercise. But then these are always the residents who have problems with their documents.” He has, to date, found three people with two voter cards each.
Sajal, who is working in Duttabad, says there is rampant fear of getting names struck off from the rolls. “While I’m asking them not to panic, not all their fears are unfounded,” says the BLO, who is getting several people with two voter cards. “They say one was made at their place of birth and the second at the place they married into. When I question how this is possible, they say this is how it hasbeen all along.”
He mentions another couple living in the Lake Town area, but with voter card addresses in Duttabad. “They had no other ID proof and kept telling me: ‘Dekhun na kono bhabe jodi kora jaye,” says Sajal. “I got their drift and refused to comply, and finally they confessed: ‘2014 ey amra Banglades theke aisi, jekhane paisi dhukai gesi.’”
Officialspeak
The workload of the BLOs is Herculean, an official involved with the SIR process admitted, on condition of anonymity. “Once the SIR started, the first 10 days were for distribution of forms. Collection started thereafter. But many voters have not filled up their forms yet or are not always home. The BLOs’ access to the portal will stop on the midnight of December 4. So there is tremendous pressure on them to complete work,” he added.
The app not working at an optimum level has added to their woes, the official admitted. “Often the speed is so slow that work is getting hampered,” he said.
Additional Reporting By Sudeshna Banerjee
