Booth Level Officer and Booth Level Agents interact with residents during the house-to-house distribution of Enumeration Forms for the second phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls at Bijoygarh, in Kolkata.
| Photo Credit: ANI
A section of booth-level officers on Saturday (November 15, 2025) raised concerns with increasing work pressure in light of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of West Bengal’s electoral rolls, and demanded an extension of the enumeration phase and assistance with online data entry.
“We submitted a letter to the State’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal seeking his intervention with the tremendous pressure we have been working under for the last ten days. He has assured us that he will do the needful to address our concerns and will communicate with the Election Commission of India regarding some of our demands, if necessary,” Swapan Mondal, General Secretary of Votekormi And BLO Aikya Mancha told The Hindu.
The demands put forward by a section of BLOs include an extension of the timespan of the enumeration phase, the engagement of data entry operators for assistance, an option for BLOs to edit any wrong information collected, among others.
“Frequent change of directives create confusion not only among BLOs but also among electors. Clear and compact guidelines should be issued immediately,” read one of the demands submitted by the Votekormi And BLO Aikya Mancha.
Additionally on Saturday (November 15, 2025), a section of BLOs in Siliguri and Howrah staged agitations to protest against the ‘unmanageable workload’, 11 days since the enumeration phase began on November 4. It is slated to conclude on December 4.
In this phase in the SIR process, booth-level officers appointed by the ECI for each polling station are expected to distribute enumeration forms among electors, collect them, and digitise the data on the BLO app. Earlier, BLOs had raised questions on how they would carry out their SIR duties alongside their responsibilities at their workplace. For context, most BLOs in West Bengal were selected from among existing government employees, especially teachers.
In the agitations in Howrah and Siliguri, BLOs raised objections with the task of online data entry after enumeration forms are filled up and submitted by electors.
“We are working several hours a day in our usual jobs, and afterwards to complete distributing and collecting enumeration forms as soon as possible. Uploading data is another time and labour-intensive task. Our simple demand to the ECI is to engage data entry operators for this purpose,” a disgruntled BLO said.
She added that several BLOs are also not equipped with the skills for digital data entry, and that digitising each form requires a considerable amount of time.
According to the CEO’s office, training programmes are being conducted across the State to guide BLOs with the digitisation of filled-up enumeration forms. Over 80,000 BLOs are carrying out duties in the SIR of the State’s electoral rolls.
Review meetings continue
Meanwhile, on Saturday (November 15, 2025), CEO Mr. Agarwal along with additional CEOs, deputy CEOs, joint CEO and all 26 District Electoral Officers (DEOs) in a video meeting with Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, reviewed the progress of SIR in West Bengal.
According to sources in the CEO’s office, a high-level ECI delegation including Mr. Bharti is scheduled to reach Kolkata on November 18 to review the progress of ongoing SIR and to attend the workshop on first level checking of electronic voting machines (EVMs). The delegation is likely to review Kolkata, South 24 Pargana, Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda districts.
A meeting will also be held with the DEOs and Electoral Registration Officers of Kolkata North, Kolkata South, and South 24 Parganas on November 18. The West Bengal CEO will attend the meeting along with other officers, sources said.
Published – November 16, 2025 03:54 am IST
