THOOTHUKUDI: The Tamil Nadu Government Employees Association (TNGEA) has urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) and state government to provide solatium and government job to the wife of the district election programmer E Saravanan (35) who died on Thursday allegedly due to work pressure during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls exercise.
According to sources, E Saravanan (35) a resident of P&T Colony, was employed as district election programmer at district election department on contract basis. He died allegedly due to cardiac arrest in the wee hours on Thursday. He is survived by his wife Shanmugapriya (30), daughters Risana (8), Sahana (5) and son Rishi Linga (3).
Saravanan was in charge of uploading SIR forms on the ECI website, and had been updating the progress to the collector for every 2 hours, sources said.
Saravanan’s family members told TNIE that he worked day and night for the SIR. “Even after coming home, there will be inquiries over SIR till 2 am. He did not have sound sleep since November 4, when the SIR exercise was launched. This resulted in cardiac arrest,” his brother said, adding Saravanan did not have any other ailment.
District collector K Elambahavath had recently appreciated Saravanan’s efforts in completing the SIR work. “Saravanan’s skill merging excel sheet of voters’ list of 2002 and 2024, helped BLOs to accomplish the work quicker’, the collector had said during the felicitation ceremony.
TNGEA president S Mahendra Prabhu said Saravanan died only because of pressure caused by the SIR works. He used to work until 2 am every day and be in office by 6 am.
Stating that the communication of Election Commission of India (ECI) dated March 9, 2023 ensures a minimum ex-gratia of Rs 30 lakh to the kin next to any private person hired for election work, the commission must consider granting suitable solatium for the Saravanan’s family, said Mahendran.
Further, he said the state government should consider SIR work as a special occasion, and announce solatium to the bereaved family as it provided to frontline workers during COVID19 pandemic.
CPI (M) state secretary P Shanmugam in a representation to Chief Minister M K Stalin stated that since the family lost its breadwinner, the Tamil Nadu government must offer a government employment to the wife of the deceased so that education of his children would not be affected.