Madhab Hansda has not been able to forget the phone call from three weeks ago—no matter how hard he tries. It was the last time his wife, Namita, called him.
An Anganwadi teacher, Namita was the Booth Level Officer (BLO) at booth no. 263 under the Monteswar Assembly constituency in West Bengal's East Burdwan district. While collecting forms from door to door for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, Namita fainted and collapsed in the middle of the road.
As she regained consciousness on her way to Kalna Hospital, she called Madhab and asked him to “come and take me home.”
But the Adivasi teacher-turned-BLO could not return home that day. She died of a brain stroke at the hospital.
“There was immense pressure on Namita from the Block Development Officer (BDO)'s office. They kept saying she must collect and submit 80 percent of the forms as quickly as possible. Although she had submitted the forms of 700 voters out of 1,233, there was still a lot of pressure. That pressure ultimately claimed her life.”Madhab Hansda
Namita’s family further alleges that she was sent into the SIR fieldwork practically without any training. On top of that, she had only one month to go from door to door to more than 1,000 voters to distribute forms, collect them back, scan them, and upload them to the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s portal.
Anger and Protests Mounting Over Stressed BLOs
The SIR process in West Bengal started on 4 November. Since then, at least four BLOs have lost their lives. In each case, the allegation is the same: they were pushed into SIR work without sufficient time, adequate training, or resources.
The deaths have even prompted BLO Adhikar Rakhsha Committee to take to the ground. Since 24 November, they have been holding a sit-in protest outside the office of the state’s chief electoral officer. The organisation’s joint convenor, Bappaditya Banerjee, told The Quint:
“The ECI tried to force two years' worth of work into one month without any planning. As a result, BLOs are dying one after another.”
According to a section of state administration officials, the 2025 list is being mapped with the SIR list of 2002. But until a few months ago, the 2002 lists of the districts were gathering dust in the mahafezkhana (record rooms) of the District Magistrate's offices.
The last pages of the 2002 lists of many booths had been eaten away by termites, they claimed.
The ECI handed these "incomplete lists" to BLOs and sent them out to conduct the SIR, the officials allege, adding that, as a result, BLOs had to face the anger of voters who had been voting for years but did not find their names in the list. On top of that, there was no administrative protection provided to the BLOs.
Bappaditya said the problem wasn't as severe in Kolkata and other urban areas. But in rural areas, where many people, including the BLOs themselves, are not proficient in using smartphones, the problem began from day one.
"The BLOs had to upload the data from the submitted forms to the ECI’s website. Even after repeated appeals, no data entry operators were provided. The workload was inhuman. And then the commission said the work must be completed not by 4 December, but by 25 November. We realised that if we didn’t protest, we would all end up dead. That’s why the movement began.”Bappaditya Banerjee, BLO Adhikar Rakhsha Committee
The Quint has reached out to the District Magistrate's office to verify these allegations. This story will be updated as and when they respond.
Politics of SIR: BJP vs TMC
With protests and anger against the chaotic SIR process rising in the state, the ECI on 30 November extended the deadline. The timing of this sudden extension, however, has triggered a political row in the state.
According to the ECI's new guidelines, the entire process has been pushed back by seven days. In the earlier notification, BLOs had been asked to upload all enumeration forms of their respective booths to the its website by 4 December. The draft list was scheduled to be published on 9 December.
These dates have now been changed. Currently, 11 December has been fixed as the last day for form uploads, and the draft voter list will be published on 16 December.
Some feel this ECI directive came at the behest of the saffron party. On 28 November, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Shamik Bhattacharya held a press conference in Kolkata in which he lashed out at the ECI.
“Instead of delivering lofty lectures from Delhi, ECI Chairman Gyanesh Kumar should come to Kolkata and see the conditions in which the BLOs are being forced to work,” Bhattacharya said.
He further alleged that BLOs were being pressured by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) to upload forms of dead and fake voters to the ECI’s website. Within 24 hours of his press conference, the ECI issued a statement announcing the seven-day extension.
On Monday, the Leader of Opposition in West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari, along with a BJP delegation, met with the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal. After the meeting, Adhikari told reporters,
“In more than 17,000 booths in the state, the TMC, with the help of BDOs, has submitted forms of fake and dead voters. BLOs are being threatened. Our demand is that all fake names must be removed.”
Around the same time, outside the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, BJP workers got into an argument with some of the protesting BLOs, with the saffron party alleging that the BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee is actually a frontal organisation of the Trinamool.
Fake Names, Fraudulent Lists
When the SIR process began, the BJP directly claimed that through this process, the names of 1.5-2 crore people would be removed. Along with dead and fake voters, BJP leaders, including Adhikari, also claimed that Muslims and Rohingya infiltrators from Bangladesh and Myanmar would be removed from the list.
According to the report given by the ECI on Monday, so far more than 91 percent of the forms have already been scanned and uploaded to the ECI website, and around 43 lakh names, including dead and fake voters, are set to be removed.
Out of that, roughly 21 lakh are dead voters, 15 lakh are transferred voters, and five lakh are missing voters. Only 98,000 fake voters have been identified.
Yet, Sudipta Guha, one of the state BJP’s spokespersons, doubled down on fake names.
He told The Quint, "The local administration is exerting pressure so that fake names can be inserted. The only way out of this situation is to impose Article 356, bring the state administration under President’s rule, and let the ECI carry out the SIR.”
Notably, during the meeting with the state’s Chief Electoral Officer, Adhikari also demanded that after the publication of the draft list, when disputes are heard at the hearing centres, CCTV cameras must be kept running at all the centres.
The BJP alleges that Trinamool turned off CCTV cameras at counting centres during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and changed the results in many places. Trinamool, in turn, calls these allegations "a cry of defeat" after sensing an early loss in the 2026 elections.
Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Ritabrata Banerjee told The Quint, “If the SIR had to be conducted properly, why didn’t the ECI do it after the 2021 Assembly elections? Why was it done in such a hurried manner? BJP leaders kept saying that more than one crore names will be deleted through this SIR. On what basis did they say that? And why didn’t the ECI act against them?”
"The BJP tried to use the SIR to conduct a backdoor citizenship verification across the country. But that plan has backfired. That’s why BJP leaders are now targeting Gyanesh Kumar, the Centre's blue-eyed boy.”Ritabrata Banerjee, TMC MP
TMC Reaches New Delhi, CPI(M) Cries Foul
Meanwhile, on Friday, a delegation of 10 Trinamool MPs went to Delhi to meet officials of the Central Election Commission. The party claims that since the beginning of the SIR process, more than 40 people, including BLOs and ordinary citizens, have died in the state.
The TMC blamed BJP leaders for spreading panic among ordinary citizens, adding that their deaths are the "responsibility of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar".
The CPI(M) has also raised questions on the SIR process. In a press release on 29 November, the CPI(M) stated, “Stop flawed SIR. A routine, transparent, and citizen-friendly process has been turned into a chaotic and arbitrary one."
On Monday, a CPI(M) delegation also met with the state’s Chief Electoral Officer, alleging that due to the BJP’s pressure, their call to lessen pressure on the BLOs and provide training to them was not heeded.
At the same time, the CPI(M) alleged that taking advantage of the ECI's failures, the TMC is manipulating the voter list of many booths. The CPI(M) claimed that in many cases, bypassing BLOs, names were inserted directly into the SIR list at the instructions of Trinamool MPs and MLAs. They demanded that a separate verification be done for all such names, and that this work must stop.
Significantly, according to the ECI data on Monday, there are 2,208 booths in the state where there are no dead or transferred voters.
In those booths, 100 percent SIR forms are likely to be submitted. At the top of this list is South 24 Parganas district. In 760 booths there, 100 percent forms will be submitted.
On this matter, CPI(M) Politburo member Nilotpal Basu told The Quint, “This entire issue has two layers. On one hand, the SIR process is being used to push the NRC and the CAA through the backdoor across the country. On the other, it is true that the voter list in West Bengal contains a huge number of fake voters. For years, we have been telling the ECI to remove the names of dead and fake voters. Now, through the SIR, we are organisationally trying to make the voter list as error-free as possible.”
Incidentally, the foundation for the 2002 SIR was based on the 2001 Census report. Some informed quarters say that since no census has taken place after 2011, it is difficult to conduct an SIR properly without it.
According to Iman Kalyan Lahiri, a professor at Jadavpur University’s Department of International Relations and political analyst, “A process like the SIR requires systematic planning, and I think that somewhere there has been a lack of it. As a result, the pressure on BLOs and officials involved becomes inevitable. The ECI should have kept in mind that outside Greater Kolkata, many people are still not computer-literate. It’s impossible to make them fill forms, scan them, and upload them overnight. Hodgepodge is bound to happen.”
However, Namita’s family does not want to be part of this political mudslinging anymore.
Her bereaved husband Madhab laments, saying:
“I used to paint houses, but I lost my job. If my son can get a job in Namita's place, our family will survive.”
(Anindya Hazra is an independent journalist reporting on news and politics form Kolkata, West Bengal)