Though it was a smooth dispatch of the polling personnel alongwith election materials and electronic voting machines (EVMs) to 2053 polling stations underRanchi lok Sabha constituency on Wednesday, they were mentally prepared to face difficulties which they might face while staying at the clusters or polling booths.
The distribution went on for the whole day at Morhabadi football stadium starting at 7 in the morning till 6 in the evening. “We came here at seven in the morning but the distribution work peaked up after 11 am,” said an official sitting at the EVM cell of Silli Assembly constituency.
Polling officials queued up whole day before the make shift stalls at Morhabadi ground for each of the Assembly constituencies Kanke, Khijri, Hatia and Ranchi.After getting the election materials and EVMs here, the polling personnel are supposed to carry them further to their respective polling station to conduct polling on Thursday.
“The EVMs will be carried by us along with the police force to the polling stations and hand it over to the presiding offices and get a receiving from them while the election materials will be carried to the booths by the presiding officers,” said a patrolling magistrate, J Soreng.
Similaly, Amit Demta, another patrolling magistrate, who has been sent to Badhai in Tamar is not afraid of any threat in the area as most of the people in his team had conducted elections earlier in the area. “There is no problem at all as most of the people of my team have earlier experiences of the area,” said Demta. The festival of elections comes once in five years so all of us must make all efforts to make it a success, he added.
Although each polling official has been given Rs 1500 for food on Thursday, they were found carrying dry food with them.
“We have been given Rs 1500 for food on polling day, we are carrying our own arrangements with us and have taken fruits and dry food to sustain ourselves tomorrow,” said presiding officer UP Sinha who has been deputed at Ormanjhi for conducting polling.