5 months ago
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Chaos prevailed extracurricular the Central Kolkata bureau of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal connected Monday (December 22, 2025) erstwhile hundreds of booth-level officers (BLOs) clashed with the police.
Citing the expanding enactment unit owing to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a conception of BLOs nether the banner of the BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee and believed to beryllium supporters of the ruling Trinamool Congress, had been carrying retired a sit-in extracurricular the CEO’s bureau astatine Netaji Subhas Road successful Central Kolkata for astir a month.
However, the concern escalated connected Monday arsenic hundreds of BLOs, protesting against the further load of “new tasks connected the BLO app’, marched to the CEO’s bureau from aggregate directions, clashed with the police, and tried breaching barricades to participate the office.
New tasks
The latest update connected the BLO mobile app added a caller diagnostic for the BLOs to re-verify logical discrepancies successful elector details successful the enumeration forms and upload signed undertakings to corroborate close mapping with the 2002 list. Around 1.36 crore enumeration forms crossed the State person been flagged for logical discrepancies, particularly concerning progeny links, erstwhile compared with the 2002 list.
Another caller diagnostic introduced successful the BLO app connected Monday greeting tasks the BLOs with the transportation of proceeding notices. According to sources successful the CEO’s office, erstwhile a BLO delivers a proceeding announcement to a voter, some the elector and the BLO indispensable motion a signifier provided by the commission, acknowledging that the elector has received the notice. This signifier indispensable past beryllium uploaded connected the app, a root said.
“We person been protesting present for 29 days. We judge it was an unplanned determination to transportation retired SIR successful specified a abbreviated span of clip and enforce this monolithic workload connected the BLOs. Five BLOs died successful West Bengal alone. Despite each this, we finished the enumeration enactment by December 11. Now the committee is introducing caller tasks for america and has kept america engaged till February 14,” Moidul Islam, the convener of the BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee, told The Hindu.
He alleged that respective voters could not beryllium mapped to the 2002 database owed to mismatches successful names arising from AI-based translation of the 2002 list.
“We are present being asked to spell from location to location to re-verify electors who person recorded logical discrepancies. We person besides been told to present the notices for hearings. We privation to conscionable the CEO and archer him that astir 20,000 to 25,000 BLOs are refusing to enactment for SIR immoderate much and privation to instrumentality to their regular duties successful schools,” Mr. Islam said.
Will BLOs enactment oregon cheque app, asks CM
Hours earlier the protests erupted, akin arguments were made by the Chief Minister successful her code addressing the Trinamool’s booth-level agents astatine Kolkata’s Netaji Indoor Stadium connected Monday.
“Every day, the BLO app gets caller updates. Even a BLO is simply a quality being… So galore antithetic instructions are being fixed successful specified a abbreviated span of time. Will BLOs enactment oregon cheque the app for updates each day?” the Chief Minister said astatine the meeting.
Accusing the Election Commission of being a ‘BJP Commission’, the Chief Minister asked if the BLOs were adequately trained for the SIR workout earlier they were blamed for mistakes. She alleged that respective genuine voters could not found links to the 2002 database owing to language-related differences betwixt the voters’ database of 2002 and 2025.
Earlier, faced with akin protests by aggrieved BLOs and information breaches astatine the CEO’s office, the Commission had directed the Kolkata Police Commissioner to deploy capable forces for the information of the staff, and to relocate the bureau to a antithetic location.
On December 18, 2025, the Commission wrote to the Union Home Ministry seeking contiguous deployment of Central forces some astatine the existent and relocated premises of the CEO’s office, citing a “law and order” concern pursuing protests by BLOs.
