At least 428 polling booths to be managed by women in phase I: CEO
KOLKATA: There will be around 428 polling booths which will be managed by women polling personnel during the first phase Lok Sabha elections in Cooch Behar, Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri on April 19. According to a press statement issued by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), there are around 230 booths in Alipurduar which will be manned by women polling personnel. In Jalpaiguri, around 138 polling stations will be managed by women and 60 in Cooch Behar.
The number of polling booths in 2024 is learnt to have increased to more than 80,000 from 79,453 approximately in 2023. To manage more than 80,000 booths, about 3,95,934 election workers are required and out of these about 1,54,374 are women workers. As a general rule, in every Assembly constituency, there is one booth that is manned by women election personnel. Going by this calculation, about 10 per cent seats in Bengal, this time, will be manned by women poll personnel. Women polling personnel will not be transferred to other districts unlike their male counterparts.
Meanwhile, filing of nominations for the second phase has already been completed by April 4. Around 15 nominations have been filed for Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency, 21 for Raiganj and 7 for Balurghat.
Incidentally, ‘home voting’ started on April 5 and will continue in three constituencies in phase I till April 14.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) launched ‘home voting’ for the first time this year. Voters above 85, over 40 per cent handicapped people and also those belonging to 18 emergency services, including police, fire services, Railway employees will get the facility of casting their votes under ‘home voting’ mode.
In Cooch Behar around 4,788 voters may avail ‘home voting’ while in Alipurduar there will be around 3,139 voters who will cast their votes under this facility. Around 4,114 voters will cast their votes at their houses in Jalpaiguri.
Meanwhile, the ECI till Friday received 3,906 complaints through cVigil out of which in 3,299 cases action has been taken. Around 550 complaints have been dropped while 57 complaints have been pending. Till Friday around 38,782 licensed arms were deposited and around 720 naka checking points were made operational.
According to sources, around 177 companies of Central Forces which are available with the ECI in Bengal are not enough to cover all the 5,814 booths which will go to poll in phase I. The ECI is in need of more forces ahead of phase I on April 19.