Kolkata, March 5 (IANS) A Booth Level Officer (BLO) and an elderly person died in West Bengal on Thursday. Family members of the deceased alleged that they died due to workload and panic arising out of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and the voters’ list in the state.
According to the police, the name of the BLO who died in West Midnapore district is Subimal Karak. He was 58-years-old and lived in Hatimari area of Shalboni police station.
He was working as a teacher at Sabli Primary School and also as the BLO of Hatimari booth.
The family stated that Subimal was reluctant to take up the SIR work-related responsibility from the beginning due to his age and ill-health. Still, he was given the responsibility of BLO. The family claimed that he was under mental stress for a long time due to it.
Subimal suddenly fell ill on Thursday morning and the family members quickly rushed him to a local doctor. However, he was declared dead.
Local Trinamool Congress MLA, Sujoy Hazra, went to the deceased man’s house on Thursday afternoon after receiving news of the incident. He said, “This is not the Election Commission, but the Torture Commission. People will never forget this torture. The Election Commission is responsible for this.”
The deceased man’s daughter Suchandrima Karak told reporters, “Father was under a lot of pressure. He used to work all day, he had to work even late at night. Father already had heart problems. That’s why he didn’t want to take the responsibility. Now everything is over for us.”
After this, questions were raised about the workload of the BLOs. However, BJP spokesperson for Midnapore organisational district Arup Das said, “Any death is unfortunate. But now Trinamool is putting the blame on the Election Commission whenever someone dies. This dirty politics should stop.”
Meanwhile, the name of the deceased in Ranaghat of Nadia district is Jaydev Dutta. He was 62-years-old. The family claimed that his name was not in the final voters’ list published on February 28 post the SIR exercise.
They said that Jaydev was worried about that and he died of a heart attack on Thursday morning.
According to family members, Jaydev did not have his father’s complete documents. He gave some of his own documents in the SIR hearing. But after the final list was published, he was mentally distressed after seeing his name under the deleted category.
–IANS
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