New Town got some new polling stations this year, which improved management and sped up the process, but some voters complained that they were not informed about the change.
“I’ve voted at the Abdul Kalam college (Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College in BA Block) all these years and now suddenly, without intimation, they change my booth!” fumed Narayan Chandra Bhowmik, a doctor from CE Block, walking out of the institute. He was asking people which side the fairground booth might be.
Half an hour later, Bhowmik was spotted at the new fairground booth. “I couldn’t find a toto so had to walk all the way,” he said. “This new venue is fine but there are no fans and we are sweating,” he said.
New Town School vote
Indeed, the new booth may have split the crowd but being on a stage, it was not equipped with fans. They had fixed a ramp to the stage and those with walking difficulties were allowed to be driven right up to it.
The booth at Balaka Abasan was tiny, in a staircase landing and with a sheet of cloth standing in for a wall. “The booth is at our community hall but polling couldn’t be held upstairs as it’s dilapidated,” said a voter Joy Prakash Mondal. Indeed the windows of the hall upstairs looked shattered.
“Still, I’m happy I could walk to this venue instead of having to trek all the way to the college. Even before that, we would have to queue up at the electric office to vote. A booth inside our complex is certainly the most convenient,” Mondal said.
Balaka vote
But a strange problem was faced by many a family across the township. “My husband’s and my votes are to be cast at this new booth,” said Sipra Saha, waiting in line at The Newtown School. “But my son’s and daughter-in-law’s votes are still at the college. How does that make sense when all of us live in the same house at AC Block?”
Residents of Balaka Abasan too faced this problem. “Despite having a booth in our own complex, some members of families had to vote at the college,” said a resident, Sanatan Barman.
A booth, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI) manual, can accommodate up to 1,400 voters. A higher number merits an auxiliary booth. The booth at Balaka had 543 voters including some from neighbouring Alaka Abasan and NBCC Vibgyor. A senior poll official deduced the problem of family members getting scattered across polling booths to online applications. “The online version of the application does not have space to mention a voter’s part number. So our workers try to allocate booths to such applicants without access to precise information,” he said, suggesting that the voters who want to change their polling booth submit Form 8 seeking the change.
“The new booths have been helpful but there need to be more,” said Avijit RoyChoudhury, sitting at a Forward Bloc camp outside the fairground station. “I have heard voters should not have to cross a highway to vote but then people from Balaka Abasan and nearby areas are still having to cross the MAR (Major Arterial Road) and come to vote on this side. We had asked for a polling station at the NKDA community hall but it didn’t materialise. Maybe next time...” Correcting the presumption, a poll official pointed out that MAR was not a state highway.
A senior official in charge of the Rajarhat New Town Assembly constituency said that the administration always tried its best to secure a government building or school in the area so that a voter has to travel less than 1-1.5km or cross any geographical barrier like a mountain, river or a very wide road. “But it is not always possible to meet each and every criterion. Else we will be left with 60 voters in one booth and 6,000 in another.”
He pointed to the effort put in by the local election administration to harness a private high-end institution like The Newtown School as a polling booth for the first time as proof of the intent to let voters vote in comfort.
He pointed to a situation in Uniworld City. “We received a request last year that a polling booth be set up inside their complex as they have a sizeable number of voters. But they failed to hold a meeting and give us a written permission to use their community hall in time during the window we had from the ECI for polling station rationalisation. They came back to us after the summary revision of rolls started, which was too late,” he said. Uniworld voters therefore voted at a school in Baliguri.
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