6 months ago
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The Election Commission of India (ECI) connected Wednesday (November 26, 2025) wrote to Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma implicit the protest by a conception of BLOs astatine the West Bengal CEO’s office, calling it a “serious information breach”, and sought an enactment taken study wrong 48 hours.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, blamed the “arrogance” of the ECI for the agelong siege by protestors astatine the CEO’s office.
In the letter, ECI caput Sujeet Kumar Mishra said the existing information astatine the bureau of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal appeared to beryllium inadequate to grip the situation.
Alleging “excessive enactment pressure” and “unmanageable workload” owed to the peculiar intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a conception of booth-level officers (BLOs) held a 30-hour objection extracurricular the CEO’s bureau till Tuesday evening (November 25).
“The existing information successful the bureau of the CEO appeared to beryllium inadequate to grip the situation, which could pb to a menace to the information and information of the Chief Electoral Officer, Joint Chief Electoral Officers, Deputy Chief Electoral Officers and different officers and unit moving successful the bureau of the Chief Electoral Officer,” the ECI said successful the letter, a transcript of which was marked to the Chief Secretary, State Home Secretary and the DGP.
Stating that it has taken a “serious presumption of the incident”, the ECI directed the constabulary to instrumentality each imaginable measures to guarantee the information and information of officers and unit “posted successful the bureau of the CEO, astatine their residences and portion commuting to and fro”.
“The Commission further directs that capable information classification shall beryllium done connected relationship of the sensitivity progressive owed to SIR activities and forthcoming elections successful the State, and guarantee that nary untoward incidental occurs again,” it said.
Speaking to reporters aft garlanding the statue of BR Ambedkar astatine the Red Road connected the juncture of Constitution Day, CM Banerjee seemingly referred to the CEO arsenic ‘khudey kursibabu’ (junior chairholder), and questioned wherefore the BLOs were made to hold for hours extracurricular his bureau conscionable to enactment distant their concerns.
“BLOs are perishing nether enactment unit not conscionable successful Bengal but besides successful states similar Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. I deliberation that the demands of these officers are conscionable and legitimate. Why did they person to beryllium for 48 hours to get an assemblage with the CEO? Is determination nary worth successful their time?” she asked.
Maintaining that BLOs are facing server issues that are stopping them from uploading voters’ information successful a timely manner, Ms. Banerjee reiterated the request to program the SIR workout for a play of 3 years alternatively of the existent two-month deadline.
“After waiting extracurricular for 2 days, they archetypal called 1 typical inside. Upon constabulary request, they aboriginal called 2 more. Why is this a amusement of arrogance? Do radical person the close to registry their complaints oregon not?” she asked.
