‘No time to rest’: Overworked Bengal village poll staffer juggles life, SIR as clock ticks

At least five deaths by suicide linked to work stress have been reported since the exercise began in West Bengal.

In the interior of South 24 Parganas district, lies Usthi, beyond motorable roads and reachable only by foot or bicycle. Here, one morning earlier this week, 42-year-old primary school teacher and Booth Level Officer (BLO) Sabeera Khatun was preparing for a day that promised to be long, like many recent days have been. Across West Bengal, the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has placed unprecedented strain on BLOs like Khatun.

Sabeera Khatun, 42, a teacher and Booth Level Officer, works on SIR forms with her daughter Sahieena in Usthi, West Bengal. (HT PHOTO)

At least five deaths by suicide linked to work stress have been reported since the exercise began in the Trinamool Congress-ruled state, though there is no way of establishing whether it is the extra work teachers such as Khatun have to do, that pushed them to death.

What is undeniable is that there is work, a lot of it. Khatun’s work, for instance, has meant her daughter, Sahieena, all of 16, has stopped attending classes to assist her with the work.

On this day, Khatun is ready by 6.30am dressed in a plain salwar kameez. The first rays of sunlight slip into her modest kitchen. A kettle whistles, but there is no breakfast. She dusts the house, feeds the dog, folds clothes, sweeping through chores with the speed of someone who has already accepted she will not have a moment to spare later.

“If I sit for even five minutes, the whole day collapses,” she says, adjusting her dupatta. “There is schoolwork, there is BLO work. Both chase me.”

She glances at her watch. School begins in 10 minutes. Her road to work is a narrow path accessible only on foot or bicycle because there are no proper roads connecting Usthi to the main town.

By 8am, she is in her classroom with a roomful of energetic six-year-olds. She corrects alphabets, scolds three boys who are arguing over an eraser, helps a girl read a sentence. Yet her hand keeps moving to the phone tucked in her dupatta.

The phone’s screen is cracked and the back is held with tape.

“Sometimes parents think I am rude because I look at the phone,” she says. “But what do I do. If I miss a call from the Block Development Officer (BDO), that is trouble.”

Even her students tease her gently. “They say, Didi, the phone loves you more than we do. They do not know I am trying to keep their parents on the electoral rolls.”

At 11.50am, the bell rings and the children scamper out. She shuts her notebook, picks up her voter list register and steps out. Her second shift begins.

“This part is the hardest,” she admits. “My colleagues go home for lunch. I go house to house.”

At noon, Khatun begins her rounds. Sahieena, walks beside her for the first stretch, checking house numbers, reminding her mother which homes she has already visited and where families recently moved. In these hours, she is no longer a schoolgirl. She is her mother’s assistant.

Sahieena is in Class 11, and English and History are her favourite subjects but she has barely attended school in a month. “I miss school for this SIR work. In the first few days I was happy I get to skip school, but then I started missing it. I barely go to classes since my mother needs help. She is all alone. How can she manage house work and the teaching job and now this?”

She helps distribute forms, maintains the register and handles digitisation. When Khatun opens her phone, it is usually Sahieena who guides her. “Scan and upload.”

Khatun laughs. “You have become my mother. I know how to do it. You should not worry this much.”

But Sahieena turns to me and says quietly, “I have watched YouTube videos of BLO suicides. I do not want my mother to feel any pressure.”

Khatun’s response is straightforward. “I am not going anywhere. Who will feed you all? No one knows how to cook.”

After Bihar, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has initiated the SIR process in nine states and three Union Territories. It involves door-to-door verification of voter details by BLOs, in a bid to clear dead, migrated, duplicate, and illegal immigrant entries from the rolls. The process is currently underway in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry.

The enumeration for SIR has handed BLOs the dual task of distributing and collecting forms ahead of the December 4 deadline. Unlike in Bihar, the current process requires BLOs to verify elector details themselves and cross-check information on each form with older electoral rolls. In Bihar, anyone missing from the 2003 state rolls had to attach documents proving eligibility along with their forms. Now, however, electors can simply fill in details from the last intensive revision. This leaves BLOs to shoulder the much heavier task of manually matching a larger volume of entries against old records.

More than 10 BLOs across Kerala, West Bengal, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh have died in recent weeks—some by suicide—after allegedly struggling under the weight of the SIR drive. The deaths have sharpened anxiety about the pressure on ground staff, even as election officials dispute any direct connection between the fatalities and the officers’ workload.

Khatun does not use the word burnout, but the stories spill out. She knows BLOs who have broken under pressure. Some have tried to take their lives. “I have my family, my daughter, my husband. But I understand why others feel trapped. When the work never ends and there is no one to lean on.”

Khatun’s husband, 50-year-old Ibrahim Mokami, works at a company half an hour away. He cycles home during lunch to help. “My wife and daughter have to work overnight. My wife is a teacher so she is teaching and doing SIR work. Network is a huge problem and that is why more time is being taken. I am trying to help by getting the forms and taking them. Food has become a huge problem because no one is at home to cook. All three of us are out the whole day. To finish the work my wife and daughter have to go out after dark. The area is safe but you never know.”

Without the phone she would be lost. The battery is weak and the network patchy. Many nights she sits on the terrace wrapped in a shawl to scan and upload forms.

She eats on the move. A handful of puffed rice from a neighbour, a piece of roti wrapped in cloth. “There is no time to enter the kitchen.”

The sun slants low. Labourers return from the fields. Women wash utensils outside. The village has no tap water; the well and pond serve every household.

At some homes she finds people who have migrated. Their names remain on the rolls but the houses are empty. She marks “not found”, notes last known addresses, and asks for proof. She repeats the instructions with patient insistence.

At a locked house a neighbour tells her, “They come home only during Puja.” She notes it down and moves on. At another door a woman’s name is missing. At the next a teenager’s date of birth is wrong. Two women have already turned her away saying they do not understand what needs to be done and she will have to come the next day and explain the process to their husbands. An elderly couple argue, “You have come for the second time, why do you keep disturbing us? If we are in the electoral roll, why do we need to prove it with documents again?” Sabeera will have to visit these houses again.

Each form is more than paper. It is someone’s identity waiting to be validated.

Around 5pm, she meets another BLO, waving his filled forms. “See, I told you I will be done before you. Now you owe me maach bhaat.” He turns to Sahieena. “No more cutting classes.” He is also her class teacher. He has been understanding with her attendance because he is a BLO too.

The BLO turns to Sabeera again and says,”Did your issue get resolved?” The issue it turns out is that many voters despite being on the 2002 electoral roll do not reflect on the app.

As dusk thickens, Sabeera settles at the small tea stall at the crossroads. It is her makeshift headquarters. She opens her register, now swollen with fifteen pages of entries and corrections. Villagers gather, asking if their names were included or requesting another explanation of the forms. She listens and reassures them. An elderly woman appears with a form. It is her second visit from a village three hours away. She has returned to submit her daughter’s form. The daughter is married and lives in Chennai.“This is the second time I am coming. The first time I came to collect the forms. I called my daughter and she told me she is already a voter in Chennai. I scolded her and said you should have told me. Sahieena sighs. “You still have to fill the form, aapa. I told you the first time that everyone’s forms need to be filled.”

The woman’s face droops. She works as a domestic help and has wrapped up her work early for each trip. “I will reach home only in the evening. I will come again with the filled form,” she says.

Around 7.30pm, the phone catches a stable signal. She uploads forms and updates the register. She has visited some houses more than three times. ECI rules require three visits but she says, “I like to give them one more chance. Our village is mostly Muslims and they fear that if they do not vote they will be removed from the roll.”

Her hands quiver. It is the day’s fatigue and the constant balancing of her roles as teacher, mother, wife and election worker.

A neighbour quietly hands her rice and fish on a steel plate. She accepts but barely eats. Ibrahim arrives for a final check-in. He worries about her working after dark. She smiles and says the unfinished work has no other time.

“At least have food. I have not talked to you about anything besides this SIR work in the past month.”

By 9.30pm, she walks home along the narrow dirt path. Her register swings by her side. Her phone lies in her bag, nearly dead. She is tired but doesn’t complain. “If I do not do this, who will make sure our village votes.”

In Usthi, democracy does not arrive through speeches or rallies. It arrives slowly, house by house, carried by a teacher-turned-BLO who gives up meals, sleep and time so that others do not disappear from the rolls.