Rajasthan BLO threatens to commit suicide over pressure to “delete Muslim votes” from electoral rolls

A Booth Level Officer (BLO) in Rajasthan’s Jaipur district has alleged intense political pressure to remove large numbers of voters—mostly Muslims—from electoral rolls in a constituency narrowly won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2023.

Kirti Kumar, a government school teacher serving as a BLO in the Hawa Mahal assembly constituency, said he is being asked to delete nearly 40% of voters from his booth following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, despite having already verified them. Hawa Mahal is a Muslim-majority seat that BJP MLA Balmukund Acharya won by a margin of just 974 votes.

In a video circulating on social media, Kumar is heard expressing extreme distress during a phone call, saying the pressure had pushed him to a breaking point. He also appeared to accuse a local BJP councillor of seeking large-scale voter deletions to influence future elections.

Kumar told media outlets that he had been asked to process 470 objections within two days, a task he said would take far longer and severely disrupt his teaching duties. Other BLOs in nearby booths reported either no objections or similar challenges, with claims that Muslim voters were being disproportionately targeted.

The allegations have intensified scrutiny of the SIR process, political interference in election administration, and the growing workload pressures faced by election staff in Rajasthan.