West Bengal’s booth-level officers have asked the state’s chief electoral officer for security cover before beginning door-to-door work to restore eligible voters’ names and register new voters, citing fears of attacks in sensitive areas across eight districts and parts of Kolkata.
The demand was made in a letter to Chief Electoral Officer Neelam Meena by the Karmakarmi and BLO Oikya Mancha, an organisation representing election workers and booth-level officers. The organisation said BLOs could be targeted by voters whose names were removed from electoral rolls, even though the officers were not responsible for the deletions.
The Election Commission has directed BLOs in states and Union territories to compare old and new electoral rolls, identify eligible voters who were left out and take steps to include their names again. The process also involves registering newly eligible voters. According to the report, training for the exercise has begun in West Bengal.
The organisation has identified North and South 24 Parganas, Howrah, parts of Hooghly, Malda, Murshidabad, North Dinajpur and parts of Kolkata as areas of concern. It said these locations had seen large numbers of voter names removed and could contain pockets where BLOs face hostility during household visits.
Swapan Mondal, secretary of the Karmakarmi and BLO Oikya Mancha, said the officers had been blamed and harassed in the past for deletions over which they had no control. He said the risk could increase when BLOs approach households whose eligible members are no longer present on the rolls.
Mondal claimed that 2.7 million names had been removed during the Special Intensive Revision process on the grounds of “logical discrepancy”, and that 1.8 million to 1.9 million of those voters were eligible. These figures and the organisation’s assessment were reported as claims by its secretary and were not independently established in the supplied report.
According to Mondal, legal action by former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had taken the matter to a tribunal, adding to the procedural complications. He said public frustration over the issue could create difficulties for BLOs working in sensitive areas.
The organisation has asked the chief electoral officer to ensure that every BLO is accompanied by security personnel or receives the necessary force during field visits. The request places election workers at the intersection of two administrative tasks: correcting the electoral roll and maintaining public confidence in the process.
The supplied report does not state whether the chief electoral officer’s office has accepted the request, announced a deployment plan or issued a formal response. The immediate next step is the start of the field exercise under the Election Commission’s instructions, with BLO security remaining the central demand raised by the organisation.
