Rules are meant to be broken,” this is the saying of the tobacco shop owners whose shops fall within the radius of 100 meter of the polling station and have made up their mind not to shut down their shop on the poll day.
Raghuwar Das who has small betel shop near Girls High School at Harmu Road, sarcastically replied, “These are the occasions for us to earn extra bucks. How can I leave this golden opportunityIJ I will close the shop from front and sale the product from the corner.”
Smoking is prohibited at the polling station and Jharkhand Chief Executive officer (CEO) PK Jajoria on the directive of Election Commission (EC) has issued a circulation for the Returning Officers (ROs) Assistant ROs and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers to ensure the enforcement of Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COPTA) at the polling centers as they are public place.
“Our condition is of hand to mouth, one day close means losing around Rs 1000 bucks. We will follow the order but partially,” said Ashok Mahto another shopkeeper.
The directive mention that all the polling stations are public places, the circulation is in sync with section 4 of COPTA 2003, which states that smoking is prohibited in public place and section 4 also states that a mandatory display signage must be posted in public places.
Moreover, COPTA has a provision to slap a fine of Rs 200 on the offender for smoking in public places.
“All the polling stations are in public place and so implementation of COPTA Act should be ensured, moreover, the presiding officers have been asked that neither polling officers including polling agents nor the voters will smoke inside the polling centre,” said the CEO.
He further added that if anyone including officer is caught smoking at polling station then it will violation of COPTA act and stern action will be taken against the offender as per the provision. Interestingly, the presiding officers have been asked to place a ‘NO Smoking’ signage at polling booth. The minimum size of the board shall be 60X30cm and it must be white.
“The board has been placed at all the polling booths and the officers have made it loud and clear to ensure the instruction is followed respectively,” said District Election Officer (DEO) Vinay Kumar Choubey.
When Choubey was asked how the administration will take a note on the betel shop owners partial close decision he said, “The offenders who comes into the book will be punished.”