The officer, Shanti Muni Ekka was given the responsibility to distribute enumeration forms in a booth area, but she could not speak, read or write Bengali, which made her task difficult.

West Bengal was among 12 states and Union Territories where the Election Commission began the enumeration phase of the exercise on November 4.

After Ekka’s death, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that she “took her own life under the unbearable pressure of the ongoing SIR work”. She alleged that many lives are being lost due to “the unplanned, relentless workload” imposed by the poll panel.

On Sunday as well, two booth level officers in Kerala and Rajasthan died by suicide because of alleged work pressure linked to the revision of voter rolls.

Amicus curiae Aparajita Singh highlighted that “holdi

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