Election Commission seeks to augment BLO numbers in Bengal

With the Election Commission of India (ECI) bracing for a complex Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls, West Bengal has emerged as the biggest challenge.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE KOLKATA

The State is facing an acute shortage of booth-level officers (BLOs)-the personnel who form the nerve centre of the mammoth voter verification drive.

Alarm bells are ringing in Nirvachan Sadan as the State's electoral machinery stares at a potential manpower crisis.

With nearly 80,681 polling stations on the ground and a proposal to add 13,817 new booths, taking the total close to one lakh, the EC requires an army of trained personnel to conduct the verification exercise. But with Government employees overstretched and many unwilling to take on additional duties, the Commission is being forced to consider unconventional options such as roping in ASHA workers and Anganwadi staff-a first in Bengal's electoral history.

Every voter verification drive relies on BLOs, typically drawn from the State's teaching and clerical cadres. They conduct house-tohouse verification of electors, ensure correction of errors, and guard against duplicate and illegal entries.

In Bengal, however, this model is under severe strain. With more than one lakh BLOs required, the State's pool of regular Government employees is simply not enough. Teachers and education staff, once pressed into such service, have increasingly resisted deployment citing academic disruptions and security fears. Compounding the crunch, many departments have already expressed their inability to release staff, arguing that schemes and classrooms are already short of manpower.