By: The Trek News Desk
A second Booth Level Officer (BLO) has been found dead in West Bengal within a week, raising fresh concerns over the workload attached to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
The latest case comes from Nadia district, where Rinku Tarafdar, a part-time schoolteacher assigned as a BLO, was discovered unresponsive in her home at Bangaljhi in Chapra on Saturday.
According to police, her family said she had been under severe stress due to SIR-related responsibilities. Officers recovered a note from her room, and the body has been sent for a postmortem. Authorities confirmed that an investigation is currently underway.
State minister Ujjal Biswas visited the family later in the day.
Mamata Banerjee to CEC: “The SIR Drive Is Unsafe and Disordered”
The incident comes at a time when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been urging the Election Commission to suspend the SIR revision program across Bengal.
In a letter sent on Thursday to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, she described the ongoing exercise as an “unplanned and coercive drive” that places electoral staff under intense pressure and risks undermining the credibility of the process.
Mahua Moitra Directly Blames the Election Commissioner
TMC MP Mahua Moitra sharply criticised the Election Commission following Tarafdar’s death.
In a strong statement, she said:
“This is a direct message for Gyanesh Kumar; you are responsible for the death of Rinku Tarafdar. She was a 52-year-old part-time teacher facing extreme pressure as a BLO, and that workload became unbearable.”
Second Similar Case in the Same Week
Earlier on Wednesday, another BLO in Jalpaiguri had also died under circumstances described by the family as linked to “excessive SIR work pressure.”
The back-to-back incidents have intensified political scrutiny of the Election Commission’s revision drive, which has been ongoing for weeks across the state.
Source: News Agencies
