Kavita Chowdhury
Krishnanagar Member of Parliament Mahua Moitra led a protest march against SIR and the death of local BLO Rinku Tarafdar in Krishnanagar.Credit: Special arrangement
On a ruled sheet of paper torn out from a school exercise book, a note, neatly written in blue ink, in Bengali held an ominous message: “I cannot bear this inhuman workload any longer.”
Rinku Tarafdar, the Booth Level Officer (BLO) in electoral booth no 201, Chapra in Krishnanagar Assembly Constituency in West Bengal, died by suicide on November 21. The 51-year-old schoolteacher’s two-page suicide note made it clear what had caused her death.
“I hold the Election Commission responsible for my current distress,” she wrote, adding, “I am not affiliated to any political party.”
BLOs like Tarafdar, namely government school teachers and government employees, have been appointed by the Election Commission of India (EC) to carry out the mammoth Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
India has 960 million registered voters – more than any other country in the world. The SIR exercise has been rolled out across 12 states covering 510 million voters, making it the largest electoral roll revision in history. Aimed at retaining genuine voters on the electoral rolls, the SIR has run into much controversy, especially in crucial election bound states like West Bengal.