Thiruvananthapuram: The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Kerala has termed a news report published on January 4 by a media outlet as misleading. The report claimed that a young woman Booth Level Officer (BLO) had died due to excessive workload. The CEO clarified that the facts presented in the report do not accurately reflect the actual situation.
According to the CEO, the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter list in Kerala is nearly complete. At this stage, BLOs are only required to distribute hearing notices, which involve a very small number of voters per booth on average. The state has rationalised polling stations by setting up 5,003 new centres, reducing voter pressure and keeping the number of voters per booth below 1,200. Additionally, new BLOs have been appointed to further ease the workload.
The Election Commission has also clarified that during the SIR process, BLOs have been completely exempted from all other government duties. Time extensions were granted to ease their responsibilities. To reduce mental stress, programmes like ‘Joython’ were organised, and social media campaigns such as ‘BLO of the Day’ were launched to encourage BLOs for their excellent work.
BLOs are the grassroots link in the election process, directly engaging with the public and strengthening democracy. Considering their workload, additional support systems have been put in place. Across the state, district administrations deployed volunteers from NCC, NSS, and MSW students to assist with technical tasks and data entry. In many districts, volunteers contributed five to six hours on weekends to facilitate digitisation work.
A community model was also adopted for digitisation. Centralised camps with high-speed internet were set up, allowing BLOs to upload forms collectively with technical expert assistance instead of using their personal mobile phones. Rules for appointing Booth Level Agents (BLA) were relaxed to enable political parties to establish assistance centres for correct form filling, reducing the need for BLOs to visit every household repeatedly.
The CEO emphasised that appointing school teachers as BLOs is not a primary policy but an administrative necessity when sufficient Category-III government staff are unavailable. Under Section 13B(2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the BLO’s role is a constitutional duty. Recognising their efforts, the Election Commission recently increased the BLO’s annual honorarium to ₹12,000.
Regarding the suicide of BLO Anish George in Kannur, the district collector’s preliminary inquiry found no direct evidence linking his death to work pressure. The report noted that Anish had already distributed 825 out of 1,065 forms and had declined offers for additional help.
An investigation into reports from Thalavoor village in Kollam district revealed that no BLO from any village in the Pathanapuram assembly constituency had lodged any complaints.
The Election Commission stated that the door-to-door visits by BLOs aim to provide voter registration benefits to elderly and helpless voters, sparing them from visiting government offices. The commission appealed to the media to avoid spreading misleading information.
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