Bengal CEO cautions on inclusion of ruling party office-bearers in BLO list

Kolkata, Sep 19 (IANS) The office of the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has issued a note of caution for all the senior officials involved with the electoral process at the district levels to be careful of the inadvertent inclusions of those state government employees as booth level officers (BLOs) who are also holding parallel posts as officer-bearers at different levels in any political party.

Insiders from the CEO’s office said this note of caution has been issued following an instance of a temporary state government employee holding an office-bearer post in the ruling Trinamool Congress, who managed to get his name in the BLO-list of the district concerned.

The whistleblower on this count was the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, who on Thursday cited the example of an office-bearer of the ruling Trinamool Congress in North 24 Parganas district, who has been included as a BLO in that district.

Adhikari highlighted that Ramesh Chandra Das, the Trinamool Congress Anchal President of Hasnabad Gram Panchayat in the North 24 Parganas district, was appointed as the Booth Level Officer (BLO) for Booth No. 20, despite being a temporary worker as an assistant teacher in a state-run school.

According to the LoP, this selection was a two-way irregularity since, first, the said individual was a temporary state government and second, he was an office-bearer of the ruling party.

The Election Commission of India, this time, has been quite strict against the selection of temporary staff as BLOs.

Adhikari had also pointed out that this selection of Ramesh Chandra Das as the BLO overlooked the credentials of other qualified and permanent teachers in the same booth.

This development, according to Adhikari, was a blatant display of political favouritism where a Trinamool Congress leader was handpicked for this critical role.

Following the instance highlighted by the LoP, the CEO’s office became alert that this incident might not be an isolated incident, and there could have been similar inadvertent inclusion of either temporary state government staff or any political party office-bearer in the list of BLOs.

So, the CEO’s office had directed their district-level administration to be careful of such inadvertent inclusions, and identify such inclusions already made and remove them from the BLO lists.

“The ECI must ensure that impartial and qualified individuals are appointed as BLOs to uphold the integrity of our electoral system," Adhikari had said.

--IANS

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