Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 24: Even as the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday in a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI) flagged two Special Intensive Revision (SIR)-related issues, the Booth-Level Officers (BLO) engaged in the ongoing SIR process in the state, scuffled with police personnel while trying to enter the Chief Electoral Officer’s office during a demonstration to protest against alleged excessive work pressure.
A senior officer said the members of the BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee took out the procession from College Square in north Kolkata, carrying locks and fetters to symbolically close the main entrance of the building in which the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) is housed. The demonstrators tried to breach police barricades to enter the CEO’s office in central Kolkata, the officer said.
The protesting BLOs raised slogans against the ECI alleging that they were forced to hold the procession as the “poll panel did not respond to their complaints of intense and inhuman work pressure during the SIR exercise.” “BLOs have been directed to complete tasks within a short period, though the same work usually takes more than two years,” a functionary claimed.
The committee also alleged that BLOs were falling sick and two of them died by suicide due to stress. The BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee had earlier announced that para-teachers, college professors and teachers from several organisations would join the march to press for immediate intervention by the ECI.
House-to-house enumeration under the SIR began on November 4 and will continue till December 4, with draft rolls scheduled for publication on December 9. The committee warned that if deadlines are not extended or corrective steps are not taken, it will launch a continuous protest programme. Another organisation, BLO Oikya Mancha, had separately flagged issues related to the digitisation of enumeration forms and demanded additional support staff. It had submitted a deputation on November 22.
Ms Banerjee, meanwhile, has written a fresh letter to the chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar regarding two “disturbing yet urgent developments” and asking if they have been done “under pressure from a political party.” This comes days after she wrote another letter to the CEC listing concerns over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the state.
The ongoing SIR in the state has already led to a massive political row, especially after the death of some booth level officers (BLOs) in various states, including Bengal. The ruling TMC has already accused the ECI of ‘acting to appease a political party,’ while the BJP has questioned Banerjee over “fearing the removal of infiltrators” from the voter list.
In the latest letter, the TMC supremo has raised two separate concerns related to the Election Commission’s ongoing SIR-related work, the first being an alleged order by the commission to not engage contractual data-entry operators and Bangla Sahyata Kendra (BSK) staff for the SIR-related or election-related data work.
She wrote that the chief electoral officer, West Bengal, has instead floated a request to “outsource” 1,000 data-entry operators and 50 software developers for a year.
She asked, “When district offices already have a substantial number of competent professionals performing such functions, what necessitates the CEO’s initiative to outsource the same work through an external agency for a full year?” “Is this exercise being undertaken at the behest of a political party to serve vested interests? The timing and, manner of this order certainly raise legitimate doubts,” the CM wrote.
The second issue Banerjee flagged in her letter is the ECI allegedly considering setting up polling stations inside private residential complexes. “This proposal is deeply problematic,” she said.
Banerjee wrote that private buildings are typically avoided as they “compromise fairness, violate established norms, and create discriminatory distinctions between privileged residents and the general public the haves and have-nots.”
She questioned the poll body again for working “under pressure from a political party to advance their partisan interests?” “The implications of such a decision would have severe impact on the fairness of the electoral process. I urge you to examine these issues with utmost seriousness, impartiality, and transparency. It is essential that the dignity, neutrality, and credibility of the Commission remain above reproach and are not compromised under any circumstances,” the chief minister said.
This comes amid the ongoing SIR in West Bengal, which has led to a massive political row between the ruling TMC and the BJP in the state. Mamata Banerjee described the SIR exercise as “unplanned, chaotic and dangerous” in a previous letter to the CEC while the BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari attacked the Bengal CM, claiming that she was trying to protect her “vote bank of ineligible and illegal elements.”
Meanwhile, the BJP’s formidable election-winning machinery after winning the Bihar elections is now eying for ousting TMC to grab power in West Bengal which is scheduled to go to the polls in March- April, next year. The BJP sources said it would try to focus on Ms Banerjee trying to anoint her nephew Abhishek Banerjee as the next chief and focus on the issue of dynastic politics – a favourite stick with which to beat the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family – with pot shots at her nephew.
The sources said the party believed that Banerjee’s ‘imposition’ on voters – of her nephew as a future chief minister – underlined the shift in a state where ‘dynastic politics’ was never the norm. Abhishek Banerjee, it was pointed out, did not command the degree of loyalty his aunt does and that could play into the opposition party’s hands, allowing it to steal on-ground resources of grass-root TMC workers not happy with Abhishek Banerjee.