Chaos at West Bengal CEO office as BLOs protest SIR deadlines
There was quite a commotion outside the office of the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) when a large section of the Trinamool Congress-backed booth-level officers — engaged in the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls on Thursday staged a restive demonstration demanding extension of the submission of enumeration forms.
A group of 400 strong officials of the BLO Protection Committee shouted slogans against the Election Commission of India (ECI) and breached the barricades trying to enter the CEO's office, where they were stopped by the security forces, forcing them to stage a sit-in.
Accompanied by the family members of the BLOs who had died during the SIR, they complained, “We have been running against time and are on the verge of a breakdown. We have to attend to our duties in schools, remain awake all night to digitise the enumeration forms. The ECI has not been extending the deadline despite our appeal to do so they are issuing fresh notifications and orders over WhatsApp every day,” one of the agitating BLOs said.
Incidentally, about 99 per cent of the enumeration forms had been digitized in Bengal, which stood fourth behind Lakshwadeep, Rajasthan and Goa in terms of ditigisting the forms.
Meanwhile, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee once again thundered from a rally in Murshidabad district, accusing once again Union Home Minister Amit Shah for creating a panic of President’s Rule in Bengal so as to enforce an “unplanned SIR” in two months “which is a work of two years.”
She said, “It was Amit Shah’s trick to enforce SIR with a hidden threat of President’s Rule. If we had blocked SIR, then they would have enforced a President’s Rule,” adding, however, that till she was there, she would not allow anyone to be sent to detention camps.
“I had told you that SIR has a hidden agenda of National Register for Citizens (NRC) … but rest assured … till I am there … I will protect you all and not allow anyone to go to detention camps,” she said, adding, “If anyone is removed (from electoral rolls), we will bring them back legally. Bengal will remain safe and inclusive.”
On Waqf laws, she said it was not the State Government but the Centre which had brought the laws and that her government had brought a resolution against it. She said, “We will not allow a single religious property in Bengal to be touched.”
