Around 1,000 eligible voters engaged for election-related work in Kancheepuram district on May 16 had reportedly foregone their democratic right to help the Election Commission conduct the exercise “smoothly”.
This number did not include a few hundred government employees, drawn from various departments, for the polling duty on the election day who have also reportedly lost their right to vote through postal ballots.
Around 300 government employees who were attending a second training session at a school in a constituency located near Chennai staged a dharna on the school premises stating that Form 12 (which entitles them to get a postal vote) were not issued to them till that date.
They withdrew their protest after the officials assured that necessary arrangements would be initiated in order to ensure that postal ballots reach them before they proceed to the polling booths for duty.
The non-government poll duty staff group consists the drivers and cleaners of vehicles engaged by the District Election Wing and the police for movement of various teams such as ‘zonal parties’, heads of armed force contingents, election observers, the college students deployed for webcasting in polling booths and private videographers engaged to record the elections.
Enquiries reveal that while the 1,000-odd eligible voters not falling under the government employee category were initially asked to provide details about their EPIC card number and the Assembly Constituency in which they used to exercise their franchise, no further intimation regarding the issuance of postal votes was provided to them.
On the poll day when this reporter enquired with the van driver, engaged for the movement of Central Paramilitary personnel, if he had cast his postal vote, he said he had not. “I have my name enrolled in the Sriperumpudur Assembly Constituency. I have reported for duty here at Cheyyur on May 14 and was ordered not to move out of this Constituency until the EVMs were moved safely to the counting centres,” he explained.
Similarly, a section of cab drivers, who were drawn for election duty through the Regional Transport Offices and police in some areas, alleged that they had been engaged four to five days before the election date and asked to stay in the area where the officials were posted for duty.
Some of the drivers and cleaners were from the Assembly Constituencies that came under the neighbouring Chennai and Tiruvannamalai districts.
However, some of the government staff, who were working in Kancheepuram district but having their vote in a Constituency in neighbouring districts such as Vellore, were provided with postal ballot irrespective of whether they actually formed part of the team of government officials drawn for election duty in Kancheepuram district.
Meanwhile, official sources said that around 21,000 persons had been roped in for election- related duties in the district and necessary steps had been taken to issue postal votes to them “to help them carry out their democratic right without fail”.
However, when the postal votes were counted on May 19, a total of 14,009 postal ballots were only officially recorded as received by the Returning Officers of the 11 Assembly Segments. Ironically, out of this, 958 were rejected as they were not properly cast, sources said.
The officials did not reply when asked if all these persons had been provided with a postal ballot sheet.
Though they were promised that postal ballot arrangements would be made, it did not happen
