West Bengal: BJP complains to CEO over TMC leader's alleged threat to BLOs in Cooch Behar

Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], November 1 (ANI): West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) wrote a letter to the Chief Election Officer (CEO) of West Bengal to file an FIR against Trinamool Congress leader Girindranath Barman for allegedly threatening the Booth Level Officer (BLO)
"In a blatant act of intimidation, the TMC Cooch Behar district chairman Girindranath Barman has publicly threatened the BLO and also asked his party workers (goons) to tie up the BLO if he comes without 'the complete voter list of 2000. "We will tie him up," the West Bengal BJP leader Shishir Bajoria wrote to the CEO in a letter dated October 31.
BJP has urged the Chief Electoral Officer to lodge an FIR against Girindranath Barman for threatening a government employee while carrying out his duty. "If strict action is not immediately initiated, such incidents of threats will keep increasing and the possibility of physical attack cannot be ruled out," the letter read.
The Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari also criticised the TMC over the incident.
Sharing a post on X, Suvendu Adhikari said, "I am compelled to bring to your urgent attention Mr.@CEOWestBengal, a brazen act of intimidation that reeks of the despotic playbook TMC has perfected over the years. The air is thick with threats. Girindranath Barman, the TMC's Cooch Behar district Chairman, a man who masquerades as a leader but behaves like a local Don, has publicly declared war on the very BLOs tasked with upholding the sanctity of our electoral rolls."
"This isn't an isolated rant from a fringe thug. It's symptomatic of TMC's scorched-earth strategy to weaponize the SIR process. They don't want to cleanse our electoral rolls, full of ghosts, infiltrators, and fakes that have bloated West Bengal's voter lists for decades", he added
"How can BLOs, often ordinary government employees, perform their door-to-door duties when TMC's foot soldiers are openly vowing to bind and tie them up? Mr CEO, the Election Commission must not stand idly by as this hostile environment suffocates democracy. I urge you, in the strongest terms, to take immediate action against such Intimidators", he tweeted.
Earlier, The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced that it will conduct the second phase of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across 12 States and Union Territories, with the final voter list to be published on February 7, 2026, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar said on Monday.
CEC Kumar said the exercise will cover Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. (ANI)