Rushing Through SIR Takes Heavy Toll on BLO’s

Controversies dog the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) wherever it goes. The problems arise due to the Election Commission rushing it through, resulting in allegations of deletion of the names of the eligible voters from the rolls in Bihar. But the Bihar election held recently passed off peacefully without much ado on the issue.

Following the cleaning of the voters’ list in Bihar, the Commission decided to implement it in nine states and three Union territories. But reports of Booth Level Officers (BLO) dying by suicide from several states going through the process has the Commission sit up and initiate corrective measures to make the revision smooth. The Kerala government has reached the Supreme Court for suspension of the SIR.

Anish George (44) was an office attendant in a school in Kannur district of Kerala. From November 4 onwards, he was not going to the school, instead making rounds of the houses within the area of a polling booth. He was the Booth Level Officer (BLO) responsible for conducting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters’ list. Two weeks into his new role, on Sunday, November 17, he decided not to visit the voters’ houses, but to make his final journey to a world where no SIR exists. 

This is not the story of one Anish, but many like him whose lives were snuffed out after they were caught between the unbearable workload of SIR and pressure tactics of superiors overseeing its execution. State after State, where SIR is going on, over half a dozen BLOs have ended their lives.  

For Anish, SIR stood not for Special Intensive Revision, but Stress Intensifying Role. His duty explained it. He was supposed to visit 417 houses, distribute 1149 forms and take back the filled-up forms. But the devil is in the details. Though it may look like one visit to each house, on the ground it turns out to be several visits. Some houses may be found locked; in some houses, details to fill up the form may not be readily available; in some other houses, it may take more than a couple of visits to get the work done. That is not all a BLO has to do. After collecting the filled-up forms, she/he has to upload them in the system, a herculean task for many.

This uploading of data through “BLO App” has thrown up its own problems. The filled-up forms have to be scanned and uploaded along with a form wherein the BLO has to enter certain data. There are no additional staff to do this job. Sometimes, after a form is uploaded, the App automatically logs out and it has to be logged in again, using a password. The system gets conked off in between, delaying the work. For most BLOs, this takes a lot of time.    

According to a BLO in Ernakulam district, they end up spending quite a good amount of time in each house answering an avalanche of doubts. Here is what he said, two weeks into conducting the SIR: “There are 913 names in the voters’ list of my booth. I have not been able to locate even 60 per cent of the people in the list. I start visiting houses at 6 a.m. and work till 8 p.m. I never had so much work pressure in my life.”

Unknown to many, the SIR threw up a gamut of problems for the BLOs to tackle. There are cases of having voters of different booths in the same house; in some cases, the people living in neighbouring houses have votes in different booths. Even when a BLO realises that the residents of the house he has visited have votes in a different booth, he cannot skip answering their doubts.

Initially, many BLOs stayed back in the houses till the forms were filled up and returned. But they realised that it was time-consuming and they would not be able to visit even 20 houses in a day, and their target would never be met. Hence, they decided to leave the forms in houses, and take back the filled-up forms once the residents have completed it. This too turned out to be time-taking as, in many houses, the BLOs found that the forms were not ready even on their second visit.

Pressure from the party

In the midst of his gruelling work, Anish had to tackle yet another problem. Since he was not familiar with most residents of the area, he decided to take help from Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of political parties. Initially, agents of the Congress and the CPI (M) came forward to help him in guiding him to each house. Soon, for some unexplained reasons, the CPI (M) agent declined to accompany him; more than that, he asked Anish not to take along the Congress agent with him. He could not defy the threat of the CPI (M) agent as the locality was a strong-hold of the communist party.

In a telephone conversation, the audio of which was released by the Congress leadership in the district, Anish made this CPI (M) threat known to the Congress agent. He reportedly said: “This is their ( CPM) area. I cannot defy them. Or else I will have to face bigger consequences.”

Caught between devil and deep sea, with no help coming from anywhere else, Anish decided to end his life. On the fateful day, when his family members were away at the Church, he ended his life; he was found hanging from the fan in a room. He found a way out to relieve himself from the Stress Intensifying Role.

Fatalities in Many States

The case of Anish is not the lone one. Cases of death by suicide by BLOs have been reported from Rajasthan, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat too. Rajasthan has reported two cases so far. Mukesh Kumar Jangid, a teacher working in a government school in Jaipur district, ended his life by jumping in front of a train. A suicide note recovered from his pocket mentioned the gruelling work load of SIR as the reason for taking the extreme step. He could not stand the pressure of distributing, collecting and processing the enumeration forms within the 30-day period given to him.

The death of another BLO was reported from a village in Sawai Madhopur district in the State. Though he died of a heart attack, the family members of the deceased, Hariom Bairwa, have refused to buy it. They alleged that excessive work pressure related to the SIR and the pressure from his senior officials to complete the work sooner than later led to his death. They have submitted a complaint to the police.

West Bengal, a State where SIR is making not ripples but waves due to political reasons, has reported deaths of two BLOs. Rinku Tarafdar, a teacher from Krishnanagar, was found dead by her husband at their residence. According to her family, in a suicide note, she has blamed the Election Commission for her drastic step. She had been stressed due to the work, especially because she lacked adequate computer skills, a key requirement for the digital workload. Her family alleged that she had been struggling for days with the door-to-door visits and continuous calls regarding queries with the enumeration forms.

This incident happened a few days after another woman BLO, Shantimoni Ekka, died in Jalpaiguri district in the State. Her family alleged that she had been under tremendous pressure, was mentally distressed and had died by suicide, though the police have not yet confirmed.

Bhuvan Singh Chauhan, an assistant teacher in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, was yet another victim. He collapsed and died a day after he was suspended for alleged negligence of duties related to the SIR exercise. According to a report, one of his family members said: “There was pressure on him to survey at least 100 voters daily. On the day he was suspended, he couldn’t bear the pressure… He neither ate dinner nor slept in the night.… He suddenly felt dizzy, collapsed from the stairs and died.”

Gujarat is another state where SIR is in progress. Two cases of death of BLOs were reported one after another in Kheda and Gir Somnath districts. Both were school teachers. In the suicide note, addressed to his wife, Arvind Kumar Vadhel of Gir Somnath reportedly wrote: “For the last several days, I have been exhausted due to the work of SIR. I don’t have any other way but to take this last step.”

Rameshbhai Parmar, 50-year-old principal of a primary school in Kheda, died of heart attack, but his family members alleged that his death was due to excessive work related to SIR.

Over five lakh BLOs are involved in the ongoing SIR in nine States –Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal – and 3 UTs namely Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep and Puducherry. The tragedy that struck a few families might not move the gargantuan administrative machinery of the government. But they expose some of the flaws in the way SIR has been conducted; they reveal the fault lines in a system that could have been better planned and executed. A responsive and sensitive government cannot turn a blind eye to the tragic and traumatic incidents that took place within a fortnight of initiating the SIR process.