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Key Points
Election Commission dismisses TMC allegation of over 40 SIR-linked deaths as baseless and urges cooperation.
ECI directs police to protect Booth Level Officers and flags delayed BLO honorarium payments by state government.
IAS Subrata Gupta named Special Roll Observer; 12 additional IAS officers assigned as district electoral roll observers.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday, 28 November 2025, rejected allegations by a 10-member Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation concerning the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal. In a nearly two-hour meeting in New Delhi, the commission told the TMC to stop interfering with field officials and to cooperate with the roll revision process.
The TMC delegation raised a claim that more than 40 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have died in connection with the exercise, which the ECI described as “baseless”. The commission further said party workers had been threatening BLOs and pulled up the state government for not paying BLOs increased honorariums.
The poll panel also announced the appointment of retired 1990-batch West Bengal cadre IAS officer Subrata Gupta as Special Roll Observer for WB, with the stated aim of ensuring transparency and accuracy in the exercise that is underway across 12 states and union territories.
The commission said it had instructed the West Bengal DGP and the Kolkata police commissioner to provide protection to BLOs against political pressure. A release from the ECI said: “Pure electoral rolls are the bedrock of democracy. The electoral roll machinery, consisting of EROs, AEROs, BLO Supervisors and BLOs, does a lot of hard work and plays a pivotal role in the preparation of impartial and transparent electoral rolls.”
The ECI criticised the state government for not releasing the increased honorarium for BLOs, calling the delay “very strange.” In August 2025, the commission doubled the annual remuneration for BLOs from ₹6,000 to ₹12,000 and approved an additional ₹6,000 for BLOs taking part in SIR. The remuneration for BLO supervisors was raised from ₹12,000 to ₹18,000. EROs and AEROs also received increments. The commission said these revisions recognise the crucial work of field teams engaged in preparing clean voter lists and urged the state to pay without further delay.
The panel also reiterated that under Article 326 only Indian citizens may vote, and that deletions should be limited to non-citizens, the deceased, shifted persons, or duplicate entries. It advised the TMC to file formal claims and objections after the draft rolls are published, rather than obstructing BLOs, EROs, and district officials who are state deputed.
TMC MPs led by Derek O’Brien handed the commission a list of nearly 40 deaths they alleged were linked to the SIR process. O’Brien said the delegation began the meeting by confronting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar with that list and accused the commission of having “blood on their hands.” Afterward, O’Brien described the ECI’s rebuttal as “outright lies.” The party also accused the ECI of selective intensity in West Bengal compared with border states and questioned the rationale for some administrative choices, including new polling stations in gated colonies and high-rises.
The standoff follows local unrest, where a BLO representative organisation staged a prolonged gherao outside the Chief Electoral Officer’s office in Kolkata in late November 2025, demanding relief from what they described as unbearable work pressure and seeking an extension to the enumeration deadline. The protest included an attempt to symbolically chain the CEO’s office gates and led to clashes with police.
The ECI’s move to install senior observers and to press the state on honorarium payments signals an attempt to shift the debate from political accusations to administrative oversight. The commission has stressed procedural safeguards and post-draft remedies, while the TMC has vowed to keep pushing its political line.
The confrontation between the TMC and the ECI comes ahead of Assembly Elections in West Bengal scheduled for March-April 2026. The SIR exercise being undertaken in the state is set be completed before polls. This has led to a tight timeline and heavy pressure on BLOs, who have been tasked with overseeing the entire process from form distribution to digitisation to verification.
As BLOs nationwide have faced health issues, with some even committing suicide, due to the pressures of the exercise, many have hut out against the ECI for the unrealistic timelines being imposed on them. Opposition parties have also picked up the issue, questioning the need for such a rushed process and pointing to a collusion between the ECI and BJP as the reason.
On Sunday, 30 November 2025, the ECI announced that it was extending the deadlines for each stage of the ongoing SIR process. The final date for distribution and digitisation of enumeration forms has now been extended to 11 December 2025. The ECI said the decision was made to ensure “full transparency” in the process. However, it failed to acknowledge the pressures being faced by BLOs. Meanwhile, most state election commissions have failed to meet the targets set earlier for 4 December 2025 – the original deadline. [Rh]
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