Homely food served to polling sta, elderly voters in Ullal

Around 1 p.m., Diwakar, the presiding o‡cer of one of the eight polling booths in Government School in Kumpala, near Ullal, took a brief break from polling duty to have lunch prepared by Akshara Dasoha mid-day meal cooks of the school. Apart from ‘kheer’, the three cooks of the school served boiled rice, rasam, masala curds and a few other items. In addition to polling sta¡, a few elderly voters also received food after casting their vote.

“After a long time I have eaten homely food at a polling centre,” Mr. Diwakar said. The cooks served good dinner to the sta¡ on Thursday evening. Sumptuous breakfast was served to the sta¡ on Friday morning, he added.

ORS made available

To address health concerns due to the heat, health sta¡ posted at each of the booths carried a box that contained Oral Rehydration Salt packets and medicines for common ailments.

The ORS came in handy to a middle aged woman, who experienced symptoms of diarrhea soon after she came out of the polling booth at Government Higher Primary School in Mukkucherry around noon. After o¡ering her ORS, arrangements were made to take the woman to the nearest hospital.

Voter slips

The heat and prevailing humid conditions in Mangaluru prevented many boothlevel o‡cers (BLOs) from delivering voter slips to houses.

Voters were seen coming to the booth and collecting slips from the BLOs sitting under a shade at polling station premises. The BLOs found it hard to oblige requests of voters to provide in white paper chits the “part number” and “serial number” for those who had left their slips at home.

No mobile phones

The ban on mobile phones in polling booths was implemented in di¡erent ways across the district.

In Bilinele, Mani and at a few other booths, phone collection trays had been placed. In Mangaluru and Ullal, Health Department personnel doubled up at mobile phone collectors only in a few booths.

In some booths in Ullal, voters were allowed to carry phones into the booth after switching them o¡.

100% voting

The polling station in tribal village Banjaru Male in Belthangady taluk recorded 100% voting with all the 111 residents casting their vote. The polling station in Yelaneeru village of Belthangady taluk recorded 82% polling with 389 of the 471 residents turning up to vote.

H.S. MANJUNATH A voter collecting her mobile phone after voting at a polling booth at Sri Gopalakrishna High School at Bilinele in Kadaba taluk in Dakshina Kannada on Friday.

H.S. MANJUNATH Health workers at a Sakhi polling booth at Sri Gopalakrishna High School at Bilinele in Kadaba taluk in Dakshina Kannada on Friday.

SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT Voters at Banjaru Male, a tribal village, turned up to exercise their franchise in Belthangady taluk of Dakshina Kannada district on Friday.