KRISHNANAGAR: A 51-year-old from Nadia district became the second booth-level officer (BLO) to die by suicide in West Bengal within three days, swinging the glare on the immense pressure on these govt employees engaged for special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in various states. At least six suicides by BLOs have been reported from five states.Rinku Tarafdar, a para-teacher, was found hanging at her Krishnanagar home on Friday night. She left behind a two-page suicide note in Bengali, in which she held EC responsible for her death. “I do not support any political party. I am a very ordinary person. But, I cannot handle this inhuman work pressure,” she wrote, adding that despite being paid poorly, she was not given a break from BLO duty.
Rinku wrote that she “wanted to live”, but feared that she would be “unable to handle” the “administrative fallout” of not completing her work. “I have completed 95% of the offline work, but I don’t know anything about the online work. Informing the supervisor also yielded no results,” she wrote.Her family confirmed she was struggling due to her lack of digital knowledge. “She distributed the forms on time, but didn’t know anything about uploading. This is not suicide, but murder by the EC,” her husband Ashim Tarafdar alleged.On Wednesday, a 48-year-old anganwadi worker appointed as BLO was found hanging at her home in Jalpaiguri. Her family had claimed that her inability to speak, read or write Bengali had made the SIR form-filling process and uploading of data extremely difficult for her.Besides the two deaths in Bengal, four other states – Kerala, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu – have reported suicides.CM Mamata Banerjee took to X to express her “profound shock”. She shared Rinku’s suicide note, and asked: “How many more lives will be lost? How many more need to die for this SIR? How many more dead bodies shall we see?” Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra posted a video reading out the suicide note in Hindi and English.While Bengal BJP expressed grief over Rinku’s death, it expressed doubts over the suicide note. Samik Bhattacharya, Bengal BJP chief, said: “The death has to be probed. It seems that any death from even a snake bite in Bengal will now be termed as a suicide due to EC. If any party thinks EC is working in connivance with some political outfit, they should knock on the doors of Supreme Court. EC wants to cleanse electoral rolls and that is against the interests of Trinamool Congress.“Pointing out that the BLOs had revealed they were unfamiliar with online work, BJP state general secretary, Agnimitra Paul, said TMC govt should take responsibility as it had been sitting on EC’s request to recruit 1,000 data entry operators.Bengal’s chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal said he was yet to get a report from district authorities on the two deaths. “Once we get the report, we will send it to EC for consideration,” he said.
