India, Nov. 24 -- As the Election Commission's exercise to clean up the voter list enters Bengal, a political slugfest has begun with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) backing the move and others such as the Congress and Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress criticising it.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) as chaos and said it was a calculated ploy "where citizens are being harassed", referring to the deaths of 16 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) who allegedly died due to stress.

"Under the guise of SIR, chaos has been unleashed across the country - the result? In three weeks, 16 BLOs have lost their lives. Heart attacks, stress, suicides - SIR is no reform, it's an imposed tyranny," he wrote in a post on ...