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Kolkata, Nov 20 (IANS) Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday made explosive allegations and claimed that the pressure on booth level officers (BLOs) is not due to special intensive revision (SIR) workload, as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said, but because district magistrates – who also act as district electoral officers (DEOs) – are forced to indulge in unethical practices during the voter list revision exercise. Are doing.
The officer issued a statement on Thursday evening, soon after reports of the Chief Minister writing to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar demanding an immediate stop to the SIR exercise to “relieve” the BLOs of duty came to light. The officer reacted sharply, alleging that the real pressure on BLOs arose from political interference.
In the statement, the opposition leader alleged that in districts like East Midnapore, Hooghly and East Burdwan, district magistrates, as well as DEOs, BLOs were acting as full-time Trinamool Congress election agents by pressurizing them to share the official OTPs either with the district magistrates or with ruling party workers appointed as data entry operators.
According to the opposition leader, the purpose of this unethical pressure on BLOs was to tamper with the voter list by misusing the BLO app, which is currently being cleaned through the SIR process.
“The BLO app, created for voter list verification, is now being hijacked by Mamata Banerjee’s administration to add fake voters and remove genuine voters to manipulate the voter list,” the opposition leader claimed.
The officer has also alleged that while putting this unethical pressure on the BLOs, the District Magistrate was also threatening them with possible actions like transfer, suspension and pay cut.
Earlier in the day, Mamata Banerjee had written to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar, objecting to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), claiming that the manner in which the exercise is being imposed on election officials and citizens is “unplanned”, “anarchical” and “dangerous”.
“I have expressed my serious concerns regarding the ongoing Special Intensive Care Unit (SIR) from time to time and the manner in which it has been imposed on people,” he said.
–IANS
Source/SKP