Politicians Bicker, BLOs Suffer: What's Killing The BLOs?

From resignation letters to suicide notes, words of fallen BLOs or Booth Level Officers follow one pattern – I cannot do this anymore.

Pinky from Noida writes in her resignation on November 24, “Been a teacher for 20 years, never faced such humiliation, I cannot do this anymore.”

While in Kolkata, Rinku Tarafdar writes a devastating note that will shatter for family forever: “The Election Commission is responsible for my death. I have never been involved in politics. My family is financially stable. But I cannot bear the inhuman pressure for such a minor job. I am mentally shattered.”

As more cases emerge of BLOs dying by suicide, under the pressure of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision or SIR Phase II, more are daring to come forward with their stories on the suffocating work pressure and unrealistic expectations drowning them.

From Bihar to Kerala, similar stories

The first thing Ajit remembers from those weeks is the silence of his house at 2 AM — a silence broken only by the hum of his ageing phone, overheating as he tried to upload yet another batch of SIR forms. 

Ajit (name changed), a maths teacher from Patna who was employed as BLO before the Bihar elections, would spend his days moving from door to door, collecting and checking forms. Evenings vanished into data entry. Nights dissolved into digitisation.

“We did it at night, when the internet is a bit faster,” he says. “I would finish the paperwork, have a quick dinner, then stay up till 2 AM. I forgot what it feels like to sleep.”

Like him, thousands of Booth Level Officers (BLOs) across nine states and Union Territories, all pulled from India’s vast teaching and anganwadi workforce—jobs long coveted for stability, security and predictability. Yet under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), these supposedly cushy posts have become, in several cases, the alleged motive for suicide.

This month, five people, each from Gujarat, Bengal, Kerala and more, have ended their lives because of SIR stress, either as alleged by their suicide notes or relatives. 

A system straining its foot soldiers

The BL⁠Os’ task sounds straightforward on paper: verify voter rolls, collect updated details, digitise the information. But a many allege year’s work has been compressed into a single month. Many BLOs report being assigned up to 1,200 voters each—sometimes, they say, as many as 1,400 when clerks reshuffle lists.

While political parties and social media users argue over SIR’s merits, it is the BLOs who face the people at their doors—and the pressure of meeting impossible daily targets.

Bihar, the testing grounds for SIR, had two months to complete the process. The current phase has half that time. By mid-November—already halfway to the 4 December deadline—only around 16 per cent of enumeration forms nationwide had been digitised. BLOs were blamed.

A Gautam Buddha Nagar poll official asks, pointedly: “People returned the forms, didn’t they? So why haven’t they been digitised?”

For many BLOs, the answer is simple: their phones and their data are not built for this. They use personal devices, personal recharges, and sleepless nights on doing something they were never equipped to do.

A shiksha mitra (contractual teacher with around Rs 10,000 salary) in Dadri says the app’s demands devour data at an unsustainable pace. The BLOs don’t get money for recharge or travel expenses, but a meagre Rs 1,000 to 2,000 a month remuneration, depending on the state. Sangeeta (name changed) in Noida describes long nights of slow uploads. Another BLO from Patna voices the fear many feel: with quotas rising and FIRs looming, even small lapses feel dangerous. “The man or woman struggling to meet the unrealistic demands now also has to deal with the FIR pressure. Marega nahi toh kya karega?” he asks. What will they do other than suicide?

Triple whammy for women

Outlook followed several BLOs in Dadri and Jewar, and for the most part, women seemed to have drawn the shorter straw of luck. 

One BLO explains, they are not just these poll officers but mothers and wives and daughters-in-law, and they cannot skip on any of these duties. A husband or child or in-law will not stop their lives because of SIR. From washing clothes in the morning to digitisng SIR forms late at night and all the humiliations, angry voters, and angrier supervisors using rough language, the tribulations of women BLOs seem endless. 

Resignations and street anger

On Monday, BLOs in Kolkata held a protest against what they called “excessive workload” and unstable internet and monetary conditions. The demonstration quickly devolved into clashes between political factions. The BJP later claimed the protest was a Trinamool conspiracy.

In Gautam Buddha Nagar, several BLOs filed resignation letters on Monday and Tuesday, many citing the same issues as the Bengal protesters. One reads simply: “I cannot take it anymore.”

Politics over people

Congress Lok Sabha MP Sasikanth Senthil, a sharp critic of the exercise, calls SIR “essentially a census where each house needs to be touched, which needs five to six months.” Teachers and anganwadi workers, he points out, are “not revenue officers”, yet they are conducting a sprawling verification exercise with minimal training. “When they have the pressure of doing a year’s worth in a month, mistakes are bound to happen.”

Some of those mistakes, BLOs fear, could cost them their jobs—or invite an FIR.

Suicides and a mounting sense of despair

Across states, the pressure has been deadly.

In Bengal, a BLO left a stark suicide note:

“The Election Commission is responsible for my death… I cannot bear the inhuman pressure for such a minor job. I am mentally shattered.”

Five suicides officially linked to SIR have been reported so far. At an event this week, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi claimed the true toll is far higher—“over sixteen officials dead in three weeks,” he said—whether by suicide or stress-related attacks. He called the exercise an “imposed tyranny”.

Politics pile on

Sasikanth Senthil continues to blame the Election Commission for what he sees as a deeply flawed process. “The EC simply did not plan this well. Everything was announced haphazardly. It’s like demonetisation 2.0,” he says. Only after news of BLO deaths spread online, he adds, did the human cost become visible. “Human life doesn’t matter to them?”

He also warns that BLOs are being pushed to rubber-stamp entries under pressure. “Anyone is signing for anyone—like a family member. What happens if a non-resident is added to the rolls? How can BLOs confirm everything physically with these quotas? More FIRs then?”

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee escalated the criticism, posting on X, “How many more lives will be lost? How many more dead bodies shall we see for this? This has become truly alarming now!”. She urged the ECI to stop the exercise immediately. Bengal election is scheduled for 2026.

Opposition parties argue that both the BJP and the Election Commission share responsibility for the confusion and deaths linked to SIR. The BJP rejects this. 

“We can only talk about BLA, not BLO. Their pressures or work hours are under EC, what can we do? All I can say is if someone is burdened, they should be listened to maybe and then any action should be decided,” says Kamal Shukla, BJP national spokesperson. Shukla is here referring to Booth Level Agents, who are associated with political parties to help with grassroots-level management to help voters enroll.

Senthil counters that smaller parties cannot afford the BLAs the BJP and others rely on. BLOs, he says, are carrying a disproportionate share of the burden.

“One Month Is Too Little?”

Near the Gautam Buddha Nagar DM office, local BJP secretary Dharmendra Kori offers a breezy assessment: “One BLO may have to do 250 houses. How is that not possible in 30 days?”

An official standing nearby quietly corrects him. He explains that it maybe just 250 houses on paper, but if you look at the process then it is 250 to distribute forms, plus 250 to receive filled forms, then 250 to digitise, then 250 to match. It is over 1,000 then.

The official admits the real problem is timing; he claims one month is too little for this task. 

“Our BLOs are facing challenges; people don’t show up, people give incorrect information, then they berate our BLOs—even the ladies—then the FIRs on top of it.”

Those FIRs, framed as “disciplinary action”, have been lodged in Noida against more than sixty BLOs who fell behind. The DM’s office, led by Medha Roopam—daughter of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar—defends the move. “Which office doesn’t warn poor-performing employees?” a senior official asks. Any complaint, he adds, “can be reversed if the faltering BLO meets the desired quota.”

He concedes that by 23 November, only 22 per cent of files had been digitised. Still, he insists, “Every new task has slow beginnings. This is government work, so people have to speed up.” BLOs, he reminds, are not granted even casual or sick leave.

Outlook has reached out to the Election Commission spokesperson for comment.

There has been no response. Any reply will be added when received.