West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condemned what she called the “unplanned, relentless workload imposed by the so-called Election Commission of India” after a second Booth Level Officer (BLO) deployed for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise died by suicide, with the family blaming unbearable work pressure.
The BLO Shanti Muni Oraon, a member of a tribal community from the Mal area of Jalpaiguri district, worked at a local ICDS centre for children, and her body was found in the courtyard of her home.
She was given the responsibility of carrying out the distribution of the enumeration forms at the 101 booth in Rangamati gram panchayat, around 600 km north of Kolkata.
Another BLO, Namita Hansda, in East Burdwan, who served at the Memari community block, had earlier suffered a fatal cerebral attack on November 9, with her husband alleging she too had been under severe stress due to SIR duties.
Expressing shock, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, “Deeply shocked and saddened. Such precious lives are being lost because of the unplanned, relentless workload imposed by the so-called Election Commission of India. “
“A process that earlier took 3 years is now being forced into 2 months on the eve of elections to please political masters, putting inhuman pressure on BLOs,” she alleged, urging the ECI to act with “conscience” and immediately halt this “unplanned drive before more lives are lost.”
Bulu Chik Baraik, Bengal’s backward classes welfare minister, said she might have taken the extreme step due to work pressure.
“We suspect that she took her life under work pressure. These people speak Hindi but most of the local residents speak Bengali. She was having problems,” the minister said.
The BLO’s husband Sukhu Ekka, alleged that his wife had repeatedly informed her senior officer, joint block development officer of Malbazar, about the mounting work pressure but no action was taken.
“She told senior officers several times that she was not able to handle the job, but they insisted she must continue. She wanted to resign, but they didn’t let her,” he said.
Their son explained that his mother had to manage duties at the ICDS centre along with SIR responsibilities and “simply could not handle both jobs.”
The incident has intensified public anger against the Election Commission of India, coming just days after a BLO in Kerala and another in Rajasthan died by suicide, with their families also blaming election-related work pressure.
Bengal and Kerala are among the 12 states and Union Territories where the Election Commission of India is carrying out the distribution of enumeration forms as part of the Special Intensive Revision. Kerala has already challenged the exercise before the Supreme Court, even as concerns over excessive workload and mounting pressure on Booth Level Officers continue to intensify across multiple states.
Opposition parties, civil society, and even state governments accuse the ECI of rushing the process in a “hasty and opaque” manner, allegedly to manipulate voter lists ahead of 2026 state elections in key opposition strongholds like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Kerala.
The ECI has announced that the first draft electoral roll will be published on December 9, even as Assembly elections in West Bengal are expected around March–April 2026.
West Bengal, with a population of nearly 93 million and about 76 million registered voters, has 80,681 polling booths, and an equal number of BLOs now under rising stress as the SIR drive continues.
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