BLOs hold protest outside Bengal CEO office: ‘What EC is asking is impossible to do in short time’

Even as the demonstration, which involved police intervention was going on, CEO Agarwal, released data detailing “significant progress”, while praising the BLOs, calling them “real heroes of the SIR” process.

The protest was led by the BLO Rights Protection Association. After a meeting with Additional CEO Dibyendu Das failed to satisfy the BLOs, the protest escalated.

Bappaditya Banerjee, a BLO from Monteswar, told The Indian Express: “What the Election Commission is expecting out of the BLOs is totally unscientific. It is not possible to do this much work in such a short period…”

Sharing another issue of online work, Banerjee added: “We have been asked to upload 200 forms in a day, which is an impossible task.”

Even as the protests continued, CEO Manoj Agarwal admitted the difficulty of the task but defended the overall progress and the dedication of his field staff. “The work of the BLOs is definitely extensive… It is hard. They have to go to each and every place… scrutinise the forms. It is not an easy task,” he said, adding that BLOs are the “real heroes of the entire SIR programme” and “the foot soldiers” who are the “face of the Election Commission in the field”.

Addressing the complaints, Agarwal said a few complaints are inevitable. “If one or two BLOs make a mistake, we will stand behind them,” he said.

Praising the performance of “outstanding BLOs”, he said that five individuals managed to complete 100% of their work within 15 to 17 days, including BLO Narayan Kumar Laha from Dakshin Dinajpur and BLO Midia Lepcha from Kalimpong.

Regarding the complaints about net connectivity, the CEO confirmed a meeting was held with telecom operators and Ministry of Telecom officials. While the operators claimed the connectivity was “okay,” Agarwal conceded it “falters in some places”. He instructed the officers to share their issues on a WhatsApp group, which was operational during the elections to allow District Officers (DOs) to report problems in real-time. “They can put it in the app, and we will reply as fast as possible. Connectivity issues can be there in a few places… but it is not a permanent problem.”

On Monday, the CEO’s office in a report shared the SIR progress, according to which there are 7,66,37,529 electors across 80,681 polling stations in 294 Assembly Constituencies. The report stated that 99.76% of Enumeration Forms (EFs) have been distributed. As per the report, 5,742 BLOs have completed 90% of the work and 7,928 have completed a specific, though unstated, percentage. Purba Bardhaman (66.47%), Alipurduar (66.41%), and Uttar Dinajpur (65.44%) lead the list of the top 20 performing districts in distribution and digitisation, stated the report.

Agarwal clarified that the distribution figure includes about 10.33 lakh of “untraceable voters” who “couldn’t be traced till date.”

The CEO also addressed the letter written by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to the Chief Election Commissioner objecting to the proposals for hiring data entry operators (DEOs). Agarwal explained that the decision to not use the current contractual DEOs came from the EC following a complaint and subsequent action. He confirmed that the new tender for DEOs was floated on the EC’s direction.

Additional CEO Arindam Neogi also listed the top 20 performing Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) based on distribution and digitisation percentages.The list includes Purba Bardhaman (66.47 per cent), Alipurduar (66.41per cent), Uttar Dinajpur (65.44 per cent), Malda (65.23 per cent) and Purba Medinipur (65.27 per cent).