BLO’s body found in Bengal, work-related pressure alleged; SIR anxiety claimed over 50 lives: TMC

Kolkata: A Booth Level Officer (BLO) was found dead in West Bengal's Bankura district on Sunday, triggering allegations that work-related pressure linked to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls may have played a role, police said.

The incident occurred in Ranibandh block, where the body of the deceased, Haradhan Mandal, was recovered from a school premises on Sunday morning. The police said they found a “suicide note”.

Accusing the BJP of 'bulldozing' the SIR process, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee alleged that over 50 lives have been lost "to panic, anxiety, exhaustion and fear engineered by a voter-cleansing operation designed for BJP's electoral gain".

"Mandal was a schoolteacher by profession and served as the BLO of Booth No. 206 under the Rajakata area of Ranibandh block," a police officer said.

According to the officer, a note bearing the deceased's signature was recovered from the spot, in which he reportedly referred to being unable to cope with work pressure as a BLO.

"We have seized the note and sent the body for post-mortem examination," he said.

The police initiated an investigation to ascertain the circumstances leading to Mandal's death. Officials said all angles are being examined.

Abhishek Banerjee, in an X post, accused the BJP of 'bulldozing' the SIR process.

"The death toll keeps mounting as another BLO appointed and engaged by the @ECISVEEP has taken his own life under the inhuman pressure of a hurried, chaotic and politically motivated SIR process,” he claimed.

Alleging that the BLO “died by suicide", Banerjee claimed that Mandal, in his suicide note, held the “inhuman nature of the task” responsible for his decision.

“What should have been a methodical process has instead been bulldozed through by a pliant, complicit Election Commission, bending its spine to serve the political arithmetic of one party and the ego of one man,” he said.

“And as for the BJP, if people drop dead from fatigue, despair or terror, it is an acceptable collateral cost, a convenient footnote in their power play," Banerjee, the de facto number two in the TMC hierarchy, said in the X post.

West Bengal will neither forgive nor forget, he said, adding: “History is watching.” The SIR exercise began in the state on November 4.