BLO found hanging in Krishnagar, suicide note blames ECI
The Statesman | 23 November 2025
A 52-year-old Booth Level Officer engaged in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was found hanging at her residence in Krishnagar on Saturday morning, with a handwritten suicide note that directly blamed the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the “inhuman workload” she said she could no longer endure.
The deceased, Rinku Tarafdar, a para-teacher at Vivekananda Vidyamandir High School and the BLO for Booth No. 201 under Chapra Assembly constituency (AC-82), had been living with her husband, businessman Asish Tarafdar, and their two children at their residence in Krishnagar’s Sasthitala area. According to police, her body was found hanging from the ceiling of a room on the second floor of the house early in the morning.
“We have recovered a note from her room. The body has been sent for post-mortem. A necessary probe is underway,” a senior police officer said. Police sources confirmed that the note, allegedly written by Rinku, squarely held the ECI responsible for her situation.
In the suicide note, Rinku wrote, “I want to live. My family lacks nothing. But for this modest job, they pushed me to such humiliation that I was left with no choice but to die. I cannot bear this inhuman workload. I am a part-time teacher and my salary is very low compared to my effort, yet they would not relieve me. I had completed 95 per cent of the offline work, but I was unable to manage the online tasks.” She added that despite repeatedly informing the BDO office and her supervisor about her limitations, “no action was taken”.
Her husband, still in shock, said Rinku had been increasingly distressed over the past several weeks. “She would say she didn’t know how to work on the computer. She was terrified of making a mistake while uploading the documents. She feared she would be punished or even jailed if she failed,” he said. The family said she had expressed her reluctance to take up the BLO assignment from the very beginning, citing her lack of technical expertise, but the request for reconsideration was ignored.
Rinku, originally from Bangaljhi in Chapra, had been working as a para-teacher since 2002. Her older child is pursuing a PhD in Guwahati, while the younger was recently married. Residents of the area gathered outside the house soon after news of her death spread, expressing shock and anger at the alleged administrative pressure that may have led to the tragedy.
State minister Ujjal Biswas visited the Tarafdar residence, offering condolences to the family. Krishnagar MP Mahua Moitra went further, demanding that a criminal case be filed against the CEC for the conditions under which the BLO reportedly worked.
The Election Commission, meanwhile, has asked for an immediate report from senior Nadia district officials regarding the incident. “We need to understand whether the reported reason behind her death is correct or not,” an official from the CEO’s office said, noting that field-level accounts would be crucial in determining whether excessive workload was indeed a contributing factor.
The SIR exercise, which involves the verification, updating, and cross-checking of voter lists across the state, has already drawn criticism from various quarters for placing heavy demands on teachers, para-teachers, and part-time staff drafted as BLOs. Many have complained of inadequate training, long hours, and mounting pressure to upload documents quickly to the ECI’s portal.