Caught Between Duty and Family: Bengal BLO Forced to Serve SIR Hearing Notice to Wife & Self

What began as an ordinary afternoon in Ketugram quickly turned into a moment of quiet shock for a schoolteacher and his family. Devshankar Chatterjee had finished his meal and left for school, while his wife, Anindita Devi, rested at home. Hours later, he returned—not with routine paperwork, but with a hearing notice under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

The notice was for his wife. Another was for himself.

For a brief moment, the couple was left speechless. Devshankar Chatterjee is not just a voter; he is a Booth Level Officer (BLO) posted at booth number 165 and a teacher at Bhomorkol Free Primary School in Ketugram. As per procedure, it fell upon him to hand over the notice—even when the voter in question was his own wife.

As his wife Anindita Chatterjee read the document, questions followed. The notice clearly stated that all queries should be directed to the BLO. She did exactly that. But the BLO was also her husband—and he had no answers. Bound by Election Commission (EC) rules, he could offer no explanation beyond the process itself.

According to the guidelines, the notices were generated and delivered through the official app, making attendance at the hearing mandatory. Like thousands of others, the couple had to stand in line and appear for verification.
Katwa Sub-Divisional Officer Anirban Bose later confirmed that no exception was made. “Even if someone is a BLO, the rules of the Election Commission apply equally. The same process must be followed for everyone,” he said.

Devshankar Chatterjee lives with his wife and son in the Chowrangi area of Ward No. 10 in Katwa town, though his family home is in Korola village within the same constituency. The hearing notices stemmed from what the commission termed “logical discrepancies” in records.

In Devshankar’s case, his father’s name—Pulakendra Chatterjee—appears with a spelling error in the discrepancy report, despite being correctly recorded in the 2002 voter list. Still, a hearing notice was issued.

For Anindita, the discrepancy was more striking. Her ancestral home is in Majhergram under Nakashipara police station in Nadia district, and her father’s name is Anil Chatterjee. However, the records reflect a 50-year age gap between father and daughter, triggering the notice. The result: a husband serving an electoral hearing notice to his own wife.

In a process meant to ensure accuracy and integrity, the episode has laid bare the human cost of bureaucratic rigor—where duty overrides emotion, and even family ties must stand in the queue for verification.​