BLO hangs herself in Krishnanagar, leaves suicide note blaming EC for SIR workload

A 51-year-old school teacher and Booth Level Officer (BLO), Rinku Tarafdar, was found hanging in her home in Krishnanagar’s Shasthitala area today morning, plunging her family and colleagues into grief. Beside her body a suicide note was found where she directly blames the Election Commission of India for pushing her to the edge with “inhuman work pressure” during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists. Rinku, a para-teacher at Swami Vivekananda Vidyamandir located in Bangaljhee area under Nadia's Chapra police station area, wrote that she could not cope with endless digital uploading tasks she barely understood, despite completing 95% of offline work and begging supervisors for help that never came.

In the suicide note, Rinku made it clear no family member was at fault and that she love her husband along with son and daughter and has been leading a very good family life without any crisis or poverty, but simply could not bear the sleepless nights due to panic and stress related to SIR workload. Her husband broke down terribly and calling it “murder by the Election Commission” rather than suicide. This is the third such death in less than a week—Namita Hansda died of brain stroke in Purba Bardhaman district who was a BLO of Memari's Chak Balarampur Booth No 278 and Shantimuni Oraon was found hanging in Jalpaiguri district's Mal area—both linked by families to the same immense SIR workload and unrealistic deadlines.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slams at the Election Commission though X post, asking “how many more lives will be lost? How many more need to die for this SIR? How many more dead bodies shall we see for this process? This has become truly alarming now!!”, earlier demanded an immediate halt to the SIR drive by writing letter to CEC Gyanesh Kumar. The ruling Trinamool Congress accused the EC and BJP of deliberately torturing BLOs through complex digital processes and midnight monitoring just to create political trouble in Bengal. With another BLO from Hooghly now critically ill and admitted in hospital, TMC claims that BLOs across the state are terrified, saying they are being forced to choose between their health and fear of disciplinary action.