Last Updated:
West Bengal SIR Row: During the SIR campaign in West Bengal, a big revelation of fake linking in the voter list has come to light. BLO Association has expressed concern over this by writing a letter to the Election Commission. It is alleged that people are joining the voter list with fake documents.
A very shocking controversy has come to light during the special intensive revision of voter list i.e. SIR campaign going on in West Bengal. The Block Level Officer (BLO) Association has alleged that many people are submitting such documents to be included in the voter list, through which they are proving unknown people as their father or family members. The surprising thing is that in this process the name of one person is being shown as the father of 10-10 people. The organization says that this is a direct case of electoral manipulation and this can pose a deep threat to the credibility of the voter list in future.
BLO Association has sent a detailed letter to the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal regarding this matter. It has been told in the letter that this disturbance is being seen especially in the border districts. Those who have no connection with the 2002 records are using the documents of a senior citizen who is already on the list. Linking is being done by showing oneself as their son or relative only on the basis of similar surname and record number. In this way, with the name of one person, up to 10 people are being made his sons, due to which identity verification has come under complete doubt.
These problems are being faced by BLO in SIR campaign
Swapan Mandal, General Secretary of BLO Ekya Manch, while talking to StuffUnknownsaid that the organization has written a letter to the Election Commission regarding this. The Commission has said that it will investigate this matter with the help of AI. But Mandal says that the real problem is not only of the system but also of intimidation. According to him, many BLOs are facing threats during work and due to this they are hesitant in filing complaints.
It is also written in the letter that during SIR, BLOs are continuously working under immense pressure. Due to removal of edit option in BLO app, it has become difficult to make improvements. The servers run extremely slow throughout the day and become faster only after midnight, which is increasing the mental pressure on the employees. Apart from this, confusion persists due to different instructions coming from different EROs. Digitization updates are not visible, problem is occurring due to age not being found in mapping. The organization has also demanded compensation for the dead and sick BLOs.
The BLO organization has appealed to the Election Commission to take immediate action on all these problems, because if fake linking and technical irregularities are not stopped, then the transparency of the upcoming elections can be greatly affected. The organization says that SIR is a sensitive process and greater accountability is necessary during it, both at the system and field level. Now BLOs across the state are waiting for the response and instructions of the Election Commission.
