Hundreds of BLOs protesting the additional burden of “new tasks in the BLO application” marched to the CEO’s office from several directions, clashed with the police and tried to break the barricades to enter the office. File | Photo Credit: DEBASISH BHADURI
Chaos erupted outside the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal outside central Kolkata on Monday (December 22, 2025) as hundreds of booth level officers (BLOs) clashed with the police.
Citing increasing work pressure due to the ongoing Special Intensive Review (SIR), a section of the BLO under the banner of the BLO Adhikar Raksha Committee and believed to be supporters of the ruling Trinamool Congress staged a sit-in outside the CEO’s office on Netaji Subhas Road in Central Kolkata for about a month.
However, the situation escalated on Monday when hundreds of BLOs protesting the additional burden of “new tasks in the BLO application” marched to the CEO’s office from multiple directions, clashed with the police and tried to break barricades to enter the office.
New tasks
The latest update to the BLO mobile app added a new feature for the BLO to re-verify logical inconsistencies in voter details on the enumeration forms and upload signed undertakings to confirm correct mapping with the 2002 list. About 1.36 million enumeration forms across the state were flagged for logical inconsistencies, especially in relation to descendant links, compared to the 2002 list.
Another new feature introduced in the BLO app on Monday morning tasks BLOs with delivering hearing notices. According to sources in the CEO’s office, when a BLO delivers a hearing notice to a voter, both the voter and the BLO must sign a form provided by the commission to acknowledge that the voter has received the notice. This form must then be uploaded to the application, the source said.
“We protested here for 29 days. We believe it was an unplanned decision to conduct the SIR in such a short time and impose this huge workload on the BLO. Five BLOs died in West Bengal alone. Despite all this, we completed the enumeration work by December 11. Now the commission is introducing new tasks for us and will keep us engaged BLO Movenhidul Islam, February 1. Raksha Committee, he told The Hindu.
He claimed that several voters could not be included in the 2002 list due to name discrepancies resulting from the AI-based translation of the 2002 list.
“We are now being asked to go door-to-door to re-verify voters who have noticed logical discrepancies. We have also been told to serve a hearing notice. We want to meet the CEO and tell him that around 20,000 to 25,000 BLOs are already refusing to work for SIR and wish to return to their regular duties in schools,” Mr Islam said.
Will BLOs work or check the application, asks the CM
Hours before the protests erupted, similar arguments were made by the chief minister in her address to Trinamool operatives at the booth level at Netaji Hall in Kolkata on Monday.
“The BLO app gets new updates every day. Even the BLO is a human being… There are so many different instructions given in such a short period of time. Will the BLOs work or check the app updates every day?” the Chief Minister said at the meeting.
Accusing the Election Commission of being a “BJP commission”, the Chief Minister asked whether the BLOs were sufficiently trained for the SIR exercise before being accused of mistakes. She claimed that several genuine voters could not make the connection with the 2002 roll due to language differences between the 2002 and 2025 voter rolls.
Earlier, when faced with similar protests by aggrieved BLOs and security breaches at the Director General’s office, the Commission directed the Kolkata Police Commissioner to deploy adequate force for the security of the personnel and shift the office to another location.
On 18 December 2025, the Commission wrote to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs requesting immediate deployment of central forces in both the current and relocated premises of the Director General’s office, citing the “law and order” situation following the BLO protests.
Published – 22 Dec 2025 21:44 IST
