SIR in Bengal: District Election Officers cautioned against selecting para-teachers as BLOs

Kolkata, Oct 18 (IANS) The district magistrates, who are also the district election officers in West Bengal, have been advised by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to be particularly careful while selecting para-teachers as booth-level officers (BLOs) in their respective districts for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to be conducted in the state.

The district election officers have also been advised by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to check whether any para-teacher has already been included as a BLO and, if any such case is detected, replace the BLO concerned with someone fitting the commission-mandated criteria for selection as BLOs.

The caution to the district elections officers on the possible inclusion of para-teachers as BLOs has been issued amid complaints from the opposition parties in the matter, citing specific examples.

As per commission-mandated, permanent state government employees and permanent teachers in state-run schools covered under retirement benefits like provident fund, pension, and gratuity should be the first priority for selection as BLOs.

In exceptional cases where such permanent state government employees or permanent teachers are involved elsewhere, contractual state government employees can be considered for selection as BLOs, provided there is concurrence from the CEO’s office.

Para-teachers are contractual teachers hired in states to fill gaps in the education system, especially in schools with teacher shortages or in remote areas. The concept of hiring para-teachers mainly in West Bengal is compared to other states.

At the same time, the CEO’s office insider said the district election officers have also been advised to address the complaints from the BLOs about intimidation for the inclusion of "false names" in the voter list.

Earlier this week, BLOs, as part of the Electoral Workers Unity Forum, wrote a letter to the CEO, West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal informing the latter about threats and intimidation received by many them for inclusion of “false names’ and demanded that they must be given security when they go to booth-level areas for election duty as part of the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

These BLOs complained that guns have been shown to intimidate some of them.

--IANS

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