Borough executive health officers of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will be nodal officers for implementing Covid protocols in the upcoming civic polls and they have to ensure that Covid-positive persons who wish to cast their vote are able to go to polling booths.
The health officers who head the KMC’s health services in each borough of the Kolkata municipal district will be responsible to see that all voters are given gloves at polling booths and that the waste, especially the ones used by Covid-positive voters, are disposed of as per protocol and do not litter the road.
The state election commissioner held a meeting with the health officers on Monday where they were told about their duties and responsibilities.
“We have a team of callers who dial Covid-positive persons for updates about their health. For the elections, they will also ask the infected people if they wish to cast their vote. We will facilitate the voting of those who want to cast their vote,” said a health officer who attended the meeting.
During the state assembly elections held in April and May this year, Covid-positive voters were handed over a form that they had to bring to the polling booths. Whether a similar procedure will be followed this time was not discussed at the meeting. How the Covid-positive will be transported will be decided later.
Those who test positive for Covid between December 2 and 17 will be asked whether they want to cast their vote.
“Since a Covid-positive person has to stay in isolation for 17 days, we will consider those who tested positive from December 2 as special cases. Those who tested positive before December 2 will be able to vote like anyone else,” said a KMC official.
The KMC polls are scheduled for December 19.
“The Covid-positive voters will be asked to come in the last hour of polling to cast their votes when voting for others is over,” said the health officer.
Each polling booth will have at least one health worker to hand over gloves and provide hand sanitizers to the voters. They will also check the body temperature of voters with infra-red thermometers.
Voters with 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more body temperature will be asked to vote in the last hour.
In the absence of enough KMC health workers to cover all polling booths, the services of health workers from South 24-Parganas’ Bishnupur I, Bishnupur II and Baruipur blocks will be taken for the polls, said a health officer.
The KMC polls will be held in 4,472 primary booths and 383 auxiliary booths. Auxiliary booths are temporary ones organised to break up a booth with a large number of voters to avoid crowding in the pandemic.
Each polling station will have yellow bins where the voters have to throw their gloves after casting their vote. Voters should not throw the gloves anywhere else, said a health officer.