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Kerala BLO’s Death Triggers Statewide Boycott as Bengal Officers Protest SIR Workload

The Election Commission is pushing to finish digitising voter forms by month’s end and will send a central team to West Bengal to review progress.

Overview

  • Aneesh George, 44, a booth-level officer in Kannur, was found dead and his family blamed pressure from the roll revision, with Kerala’s Chief Electoral Officer seeking a report.
  • Trade unions representing government employees and teachers in Kerala announced a statewide boycott of SIR duties on Monday and planned protest marches to the CEO and district collectorates.
  • BLOs in West Bengal staged protests and training boycotts in Siliguri, Howrah and Barrackpore, citing double manual-and-digital entry, late-night directives and app-related delays, and demanded data-entry support and more time.
  • West Bengal election authorities said about 50 lakh forms have been digitised and set an end-November target to complete digitisation, with a central ECI team visiting Nov 18–21 to review work in Kolkata, South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda.
  • An ECI bulletin reported 100% printing and roughly 97.5% distribution of enumeration forms across 12 states and UTs, as political exchanges in West Bengal intensified with TMC criticising the process and the BJP accusing it of spreading panic.