West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: The BJP on Wednesday slammed as a "poisonous lie" West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s claim about the "suicide" of a booth level officer (BLO) due to SIR workload, and alleged that the poll official died due to "threats and pressure" from the ruling TMC "goons".
According to the state police, 48-year-old Shantimuni Orao, an Anganwadi worker serving as the BLO for booth number 20/101 under Rangamati gram panchayat, was found hanging from a tree near her home in the New Glencoe tea garden area early in the morning. Her family alleged she died by suicide after weeks of mounting stress caused by the ongoing Special Intensive Review (SIR) of the electoral rolls.
Banerjee blamed the Election Commission for the BLO's death, alleging that "inhuman, unplanned" SIR workload is crushing field staff. Claiming that 28 people have died since the SIR process began, the chief minister alleged that a task earlier spread over three years was being forced into two months "to please political masters", putting "inhuman pressure" on ground-level staff.
Reacting sharply, BJP co-incharge Amit Malviya wrote on X, "Mamata Banerjee spews yet another Poisonous lie to shield her infiltrator empire from the Special Intensive Revision (sic)."
In the NDA-ruled Bihar, the same SIR was conducted with the same time-line, and zero suicides were reported, he said.
"Why are BLOs dying only in Mamata's Bengal? Because in Bengal, TMC goons threaten teachers, Anganwadi and ASHA workers: 'Finish the voter list fast or lose your job, face transfers, face violence'," he said, adding, "The pressure is not from the ECI – it is from TMC’s terror mafia."
The incident is testimony to the pressure from the TMC’s "voter-fraud syndicate", Malviya charged.
The BJP leader alleged there have been "countless political murders and hundreds of teachers and government staff attacked for refusing to expand TMC’s fake voter work" since 2021.
"Now, when a tribal sister dies tragically, with the reasons still to be ascertained, the shameless, anti-Constitution despot Mamata Banerjee blames the ECI instead of her own party's miscreants," he charged.
The "real disease" killing Bengal’' grassroots workers is 14 years of "Trinamool hooliganism", he alleged
"Her demonic plot to rob real Bengalis of their rights and gift Bengal to Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators is collapsing. Mamata Banerjee is counting her last days as Chief Minister, and the entire state can smell her fear," the BJP leader said.
"No amount of lies will save you in 2026, Mamata Banerjee. The voter list will be cleaned, infiltrators will be struck off, and Bengal's real citizens will bury your syndicate-raj forever," he added.