Among the polling teams constituted by the District Election Office, from presiding officer to polling assistant, only women have been employeed in 127 teams.
No male employee is included in these teams. Some members of the teams met the returning officer and demanded to include at least one male employee in the team to make arrangements. According to the guidelines of the Election Commission, now it would not be possible to make changes in the polling teams.
For the Assembly election in six constituencies of the district, 472 female officer and employees have been deployed. Total 7,800 employees have been given duty in the election. As the number of woman employees is more in the district, the administration had no other alternative, but to deploy them in the election duty. Most of the woman employees have been made presiding officers and the remaining given the responsibility of polling assistant 1, 2 and 3. According to the order, the presiding officers and polling assistants would be sent to the polling centres on November 18.
The members of the polling team will stay at the centre in the night and conduct polling on November 19. They are also responsible for submitting the EVM at the vote counting centre after polling. It may take time until midnight to submit the EVMs of all the 1,430 booths of all the constituencies. Because of that the members of the woman teams are perturbed. Members of some teams have demanded from the district panchayat CEO and returning officer Ayyaz Tamboli to deploy at least one male employee in the team, in view of security.