Lucknow: Mounting pressure on field staff deployed in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise has raised serious concerns after two distressing incidents in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday — one Booth Level Officer (BLO) attempted suicide in Meerut, while another died of a heart attack in Hathras allegedly due to work stress.
In Meerut, 25-year-old Mohit Chaudhary from Murlipur consumed poison while performing BLO duties at Booth No. 18 in Pallavpuram. He was immediately shifted to a private hospital on Garh Road, where he remains in critical condition. His family alleged that a supervisor kept calling and threatening to suspend him over delays in submitting voter enumeration forms.
Mohit, a clerk in the Irrigation Department appointed on compassionate grounds after his father’s death, had been assigned SIR responsibilities in the Cantonment Assembly area. His relative Amit Chaudhary said Mohit had called him barely 30 minutes before the incident, crying and complaining about harassment by officials. Tension spilled over to the hospital where family members and fellow BLOs staged a protest demanding action against the accused officials.
Meanwhile in Hathras, BLO Kamal Kant Sharma collapsed at his home after reportedly experiencing severe work pressure. His family tried to rush him to Aligarh for treatment, but he died on the way. The deceased’s wife, Neelam Sharma, alleged that continuous phone calls and excessive workload had taken a toll on his health.
“He was always tense. We kept asking him not to worry so much, and even told him to quit if it was too stressful,” she said, breaking down in front of officials. District Magistrate Atul Vats visited the family, sat on the floor with them, and assured support.
In a third incident highlighting the growing strain on ground-level election staff, a woman BLO in Kanpur faced misbehavior while distributing forms for the SIR campaign. Shahida Parveen, deployed in Arya Nagar Assembly constituency, alleged that a local youth, Mohammad Naeem, obstructed her work on Rizvi Road and hurled abuses at her. Acting on her complaint, an FIR was lodged at Bekanganj police station, and a search is underway for the accused.
These back-to-back incidents have sparked questions over the management of the ongoing SIR campaign and the safety and well-being of frontline polling staff.
Local authorities have taken note of the developments. In both Meerut and Hathras cases, official inquiries are expected into the circumstances surrounding the tragedies as calls grow for better support systems for BLOs deployed in the field.
