Kolkata, Oct 11
Amid indications that the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal will start after October 15, the commission had made it clear that under no circumstances, its criteria regarding selection of electoral officers in the state, especially the booth-level officers (BLOs) and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) should be compromised.
The ECI had sent a clear message to the West Bengal administration by sending a fresh communique to the office of the Chief Secretary, Manoj Pant, specifying the guidelines and criteria for the selection of electoral officers, especially BLOs and EROs, confirmed sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.
In case of BLOs, the first preference should be given to the permanent state government employees, including the teaching staff in state-run schools.
As per the ECI mandates norms, the option of selecting contractual state government employees as BLOs could only be considered for any booth or any region in a district, in case of the absence of an adequate number of permanent state government employees.