After 143 government employees in West Bengal had been given a deadline of Thursday noon to accept their appointment letters as Booth Level Workers (BLOs) ahead of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, almost all of them have given their acceptance, Election Commission officials said.
The office of the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) had on Wednesday given an ultimatum to the 143 government employees, mostly school teachers, to accept their appointment as BLOs, failing which district administrations were told to suspend them from their jobs.
Sources from the CEO’s office said Thursday that almost all of the 143 have now accepted their appointment, but that some have given medical reasons and asked to be kept out. The sources said these cases would be looked into and that they would be replaced if required.
BLOs are crucial for the SIR process, as they are tasked with going door to door and distributing enumeration forms to collect information on voters. This process is slated to start next week, and sources in the CEO’s office said 80,681 BLOs have been finalised. They also said two BLOs had been removed after Opposition parties raised concerns that they were office bearers of the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress.
Following the SIR in Bihar, the Election Commission earlier this week announced the schedule for the exercise in 12 other states, including West Bengal. As per the schedule, the enumeration process in these states is supposed to start on November 4.
The Indian Express reported last week that 600 government school teachers who had been reluctant to become BLOs had been sent show-cause notices. This week, EC officials zeroed in on 143 people who were yet to accept their appointment and gave them the Thursday deadline.
Earlier, government employees had raised the issue of increasing workload on government school teachers.
Bhaskar Ghosh, leader of Sangrami Jamuti Manch, which has been demanding Dearness Allowance for state government employees, said, “We are not against SIR. If the teachers do the SIR work, then the concerned schools will remain closed for those days as there is a shortage of staff in several schools in West Bengal. In some areas, only a couple of teachers manage the entire school. How will they work as BLOs?”
Some teachers also put forward concerns for their safety as the reason for their reluctance to become BLOs.
“We are afraid to do the BLO work. If anything happens (to the teachers), who is going to take responsibility? We already have a bitter experience of the Panchayat and Lok Sabha elections. So, we don’t want to take such a risk,” a senior teacher said on the condition of anonymity.
State BJP president Shamik Bhattacharya said, “Teachers are not feeling safe in this state, so they don’t want to work as BLOs.”
The ruling TMC’s spokesperson, Arup Chakraborty, said, “The Commission has no legal authority to take action against the BLOs.” He alleged that the notices are also being issued “selectively”.
West Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal was not available to comment on the matter.
