Two primary school teachers serving as booth level officers in the nationwide special intensive revision of electoral rolls, lost their lives to cardiac arrest in West Bengal’s Murshidabad and Gujarat’s Mehsana, triggering sharp allegations about extreme work pressure on officials engaged in the exercise.
West Bengal recorded its fourth booth level officer death, since the revision began on November 4, prompting a Trinamool Congress delegation to meet the full bench of the Election Commission in Delhi and accuse the poll body chief of carrying moral responsibility for the deaths.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav also attacked the ongoing revision process, calling it a large scale conspiracy against citizens that he claimed could create a situation more oppressive than the colonial period.
The special intensive revision is currently underway in twelve states and Union territories.
In Gujarat’s Mehsana district, Dinesh Raval, a 50 year old teacher, at a government primary school in Sudasana village, passed away from a heart attack at his home between Thursday night and Friday morning according to Sadasana police sub inspector Udaysinh Zala.
Opposition leaders and teachers’ unions linked his death to heavy workload and inadequate support for booth level officers, though police denied any connection between his duties and the incident
Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi stated that booth level officers are under intense pressure to complete assigned tasks within strict deadlines, while Gujarat State Primary Teacher Association president Digvijaysinh Jadeja said he had heard from other teachers that Raval had been experiencing stress due to his BLO responsibilities.
In West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, Zakir Hossain, a teacher in a state run primary school deployed as a booth level officer, collapsed on Thursday after reporting severe chest pain and was taken to a local hospital where he died later that night according to his family.
Relatives said Hossain had been struggling to balance his booth level duties with regular teaching, and claimed that his school did not relieve him from classroom responsibilities despite multiple requests, forcing him to juggle both roles.
Leaders of the Trinamool Congress, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, have accused the Election Commission of assigning an unreasonable and poorly planned workload to booth level officers.
The Bharatiya Janata Party rejected the allegations and argued that any stress faced by booth level officers stemmed from pressure exerted by the ruling Trinamool Congress rather than the Election Commission.
A ten member TMC delegation led by Rajya Sabha MP Derek O Brien met EC officials in Delhi and raised five questions regarding the deaths and the workload, but said they received no direct answers from Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Mahua Moitra said the delegation submitted a list of forty individuals whose deaths they claim are linked to the revision process, but the Commission dismissed the list as unverified allegations.
Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav posted a video on social media urging opposition parties, including NDA allies, to unite and expose what he described as a large scale plan by the BJP, warning that tampering with voter rolls could eventually lead to removal of names from land records, ration cards, caste certificates, social welfare lists, and even bank accounts.
BJP spokesperson Harishchandra Srivastava rejected Yadav’s comments and accused him of attempting to create fear and confusion among citizens.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission announced that Lakshadweep has become the first Union territory to complete full distribution and digitisation of enumeration forms under the special intensive revision.
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