The death of a polling staff in a road accident while returning from poll duty late on Thursday in the Athagarh area of Cuttack district has brought to fore, how hazardous the polling duties are turning out to be for the Government employees.
Tapan Kumar Satpathy, after officiating as a Presiding Officer in a booth in the Athagarh Assembly constituency, was returning to Cuttack along with other polling personnel and EVMs when the vehicle in which they were travelling hit head on with another vehicle also engaged in poll duties. Satpathy died on the spot while four others, including the driver, are now undergoing treatment at the SCB Medical College Hospital here in critical conditions.
Reports also said that atleast three other polling employees elsewhere in the State died and many others were taken ill while performing this year’s hectic poll duties in extreme hazardous conditions.
“Starting from dispersal of polling parties to the end of depositing the EVMs at counting centres after polling, the entire process is handled in a very disorganised manner by the Election Commission,” said a college teacher here, who was appointed as a Presiding Officer in a booth in the Banki Assembly segment of this district.
“Dangerous transportation of polling parties to different places, unhygienic accommodations at booths, hectic work on the polling day and the night before, lack of proper rest and food during the three days of polling duties are really taking the toll on the polling officials,” said another Presiding Officer.
“Above all, the fear of inviting trouble to one’s job for any minor snag in election duty is troubling everybody,” the officer said, adding that for these reasons Government employees are very reluctant to perform election duties and, therefore, advance trivial reasons to avoid it.
Besides this, some Presiding Officers were of the opinion that the training they receive to handle the EVMs and other logistics is very insufficient.
For the first timers, the training should have been for at least three days, said a Presiding Officer, pointing out that the disruption in polling is not actually for defunct EVMs but it is due to faulty handling of EVMs by inexperienced Presiding Officers.