The
Supreme Court on Tuesday took note of booth-level officers (BLOs) and other
officials being allegedly "threatened" in West Bengal and other
states during the process of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and
asked the Election Commission of India to bring such instances to
its notice, LiveLaw reported.
A
Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi asked the poll
panel to take serious notice of the alleged lack of cooperation by different
state governments during the process.
"Bring
to our notice instances of lack of cooperation, hindrances to the work of BLOs,
and we will pass appropriate orders," the Bench told senior advocate
Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Election Commission.
"Deal with the situation,
or it will cause anarchy," Justice Kant told Dwivedi while terming the
situation "very serious".
Justice Bagchi also questioned
the poll panel on the working conditions of BLOs. Responding to the question,
Dwivedi explained that there was no question of BLOs being driven to commit suicides
due to stress, as they have to tackle 37 voters on average and pick up 7-8
houses.
However, Justice Bagchi
said, "This is not desk work, BLO has to go to the spots, verify the
house-to-house enumeration and then upload... This is the pressure, which is
why we are directed to increase the number of BLOs. We want to ensure that your
SIR at ground level is done without any issues."
As
the SIR of electoral rolls is underway in several states, the cases of suicides
of BLOs have put a spotlight on their working conditions. According to media
reports, a 46-year-old BLO in Uttar Pradesh's Baheri village recently died by
suicide in the storage room of his home, reportedly because of work-related
stress. In a note he left behind, he said he was "unable to cope"
with the burden of BLO duties.
In
another incident, a 42-year-old BLO involved in the SIR exercise collapsed at
his home in Rajasthan’s Dholpur on November 29 and later died. Police said he
had collapsed while uploading voter data late at night. His family alleged that
he had been working under extreme pressure.