A female Booth Level Officer (BLO) engaged in field duties under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was allegedly abused and assaulted by a woman in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The incident, captured on video, took place on Saturday in Kali Mata ward and has since created outrage on social media platforms, where the footage is being widely circulated.
The viral clip shows the attacker shouting aggressively at the BLO, using expletives, and repeatedly hitting her. At one point, the woman can be seen slapping a bystander who stepped in to pacify the situation. The assault occurred during door-to-door verification, a process that forms the backbone of the Election Commission’s (EC) revision exercise ahead of the next electoral cycle.
According to preliminary reports, the confrontation began after the woman demanded that the BLO deliver the SIR verification form to her residence. When the form did not arrive at the time she expected, the woman allegedly became abusive. What began as a verbal outburst quickly escalated into a violent attack on the poll officer.
Witnesses stated that a man who tried to intervene was slapped by the assailant. The BLO, though visibly shaken in the video, continued attempting to reason with the woman before being forced to withdraw from the location.
The absence of an FIR has triggered concerns among local civil society groups, who argue that violence against polling staff, already under pressure due to demanding schedules, sets a worrying precedent.
The assault has surfaced at a sensitive moment, as the Election Commission extended the SIR schedule by one week across nine states and three Union Territories. The revision timeline for distributing enumeration forms has now been pushed to December 11, with draft rolls to be published on December 16 instead of December 9. The final electoral rolls will be released on February 14, 2026, a week later than the original deadline of February 7.
The extension also comes amidst political uproar. Opposition parties have criticised the SIR exercise, accusing the Election Commission of rushing the process and placing enormous stress on BLOs and enumerators. Opposition leaders claim that the pressure has contributed to the deaths of at least 40 BLOs, many of them alleged suicides.
The Election Commission has categorically denied these allegations, stating that the SIR exercise is progressing smoothly and that several reports circulating online are “unverified and exaggerated”.
The SIR currently covers nearly 51 crore electors across major states including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and several Union Territories. The EC aims to clean and update electoral rolls, verify birthplaces of electors, and help identify foreign illegal migrants as part of the process.
For BLOs like the officer assaulted in Raipur, the door-to-door verification work includes delivering forms, recording voter data, guiding households on documentation, and ensuring correctness of electoral rolls, a task that requires long hours of field visits.
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