Nation
Another BLO dies in West Bengal; suicide note cites SIR ‘workload’
Her death follows another tragedy: on Wednesday, Jalpaiguri BLO Shanti Muni Ekka also died by suicide, with her family blaming SIR pressure
West Bengal’s already tense Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise has cast yet another shadow of grief, as a second booth level officer (BLO) in three days has died — this time a 51-year-old woman in Nadia district, who left behind a haunting note about the crushing weight of her duties.
In the quiet Shasthitala neighbourhood of Krishnanagar, Rinku Tarafdar — a part-time teacher and BLO appointed in the Bangaljhi area — was found hanging in her room on Saturday. A suicide note lay nearby, its words etched with exhaustion and despair.
“I can’t handle the pressure,” she wrote. “The Election Commission is responsible for my fate… I am an ordinary person. I cannot bear the inhuman workload.”
No one in her family, she insisted, should be blamed.
Police have registered a case of unnatural death and sent her body for autopsy. A senior officer confirmed that the note clearly pointed to unrelenting SIR-related stress as the breaking point.
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Her death comes on the heels of another tragedy: on Wednesday, Shanti Muni Ekka, a BLO in Jalpaiguri’s Mal Bazar, also died by suicide, with her family alleging that SIR pressure pushed her over the edge. The shockwaves had barely settled when, the same day, another BLO — Tapati Biswas in Hooghly’s Konnagar — suffered a cerebral attack during her duties. She was relieved of election work only after collapsing.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, in a scathing public rebuke of the Election Commission, claimed that at least 28 people in the state have died since the SIR process began. She urged the ECI to halt the “unplanned drive,” warning that the relentless pace was costing lives.
The state government has announced compensation for the grieving families:
• Rs 2 lakh for the family of Shanti Muni Ekka
• Rs 1 lakh for Tapati Biswas
• Rs 2 lakh for the family of BLO Lalit Adhikari of Cooch Behar, who died in a road accident during the same period
As investigations continue and political tempers flare, the stories of these BLOs lay bare a troubling reality — that the backbone of India’s electoral machinery is often held up by ordinary workers asked to carry extraordinary, sometimes unbearable, burdens.
With IANS inputs
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