SIR timeline has thrown system into chaos: TMC on BLO's death

Unable to bear the enormous stress of the job, a Block Level Officer in Nadia committed suicide holding the Election Commission responsible for her death.

- STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condoled the death. Rinku Tarafdar from Krishnagar committed suicide by hanging herself. So far, three BLOs have committed suicide and 31 people in the state died unable to bear the stress of Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

Arup Chakraborty, Trinamul Congress spokesperson said Gyanesh Kumar, Chief Election Commissioner should take the responsibility for the death. Trinamul Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee had said over and over again that she was not against SIR but more time should have been allotted to do the exercise. "The ECI should have engaged data entry operators. That they did not, and instead forced the BLOs to do the job," he said. Chakraborty, himself a software engineer, said, "Having no knowledge to handle computers is not a crime and it is not the job of the BLOs. The ECI did not give any training on how to upload data to the BLOs," he said.