Samajwadi Party (SP) President Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday launched a sharp attack on the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government and the Election Commission of India (ECI), alleging that unprecedented pressure linked to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was driving officials to distress.
His remarks came after a 25-year-old clerk, Sudhir Kumar, allegedly died by suicide in Fatehpur earlier this week and other cases of BLOs' deaths across the nation, which have sparked a massive political row. Addressing a press conference here, Akhilesh Yadav claimed that pressure was being exerted not only on field-level Booth Level Officers (BLOs) but also on the institutions they were associated with.
"The SP has already demanded that unnecessary work pressure be avoided. This is a sensitive responsibility. Why is the BJP in such a hurry?" he said. He alleged that the Election Commission and the BJP were "working in cahoots" to influence electoral processes, leaving officials stretched and added that "people of West Bengal are saying that the Election Commission has blood on its hands".
"Municipal sanitation workers have been assigned as assistants. Many BLOs lack training and information but are still being pushed to complete tasks quickly," he added. Akhilesh Yadav, a former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, also questioned the government’s claim that all required forms had been distributed for the revision.
"On the ground, this is not true. Preparations are being made to take away the right to vote. They will create pressure to end reservations," he warned. Referring to Sudhir Kumar’s death, the SP chief said he spoke to his family in Fatehpur. "They told me pressure was being exerted on him, leading to his suicide.
A supervisor too faced extreme pressure," he alleged, while announcing Rs 2 lakh in assistance for Sangeeta, the wife of deceased BLO Vijay Kumar Verma of Malihabad. Akhilesh Yadav further accused the BJP of outsourcing election-related tasks to a Noida-based private company to speed up the SIR process.
He reiterated that around 20,000 voters’ names were deleted from Ghosi and claimed that the condition of BLOs during the recent bypolls reflected severe mismanagement. Charging the ECI with allowing "booth looting" and refusing to release CCTV footage from polling stations, he called it a "deliberate strategy to destroy democracy". The SP, he announced, would raise the SIR issue in Parliament and then take to the streets.