Voters left home on April 17 with two masks on face, surgical cap on head, gloves on hands, sanitiser in pocket and shield over face. Oh yes! And voter card in pocket.
Polling in the times of a pandemic meant additional safety measures for voters and officials, provisions for Covid-positive voters and courage in the hearts of those who braved the pandemic to exercise their franchise.
The Telegraph Salt Lake toured the twin townships on V-Day to see how Covid influenced elections.
Early birds: The queue at BB Block at 7.40am. Brinda Sarkar
Late start to safety
“I went and cast my vote but no one checked my temperature or offered sanitiser. Some people in the queue had read in the papers that we would be offered these facilities and complained to the authorities but the latter were clueless,” said Dally Chatterjee at Salt Lake School in CA Block at about 8.20am.
Early voters at other booths had the same grouse. The anganwadi workers who were entrusted with the job of checking temperature, offering gloves and sanitisers at the entrance, were late for work at some places.
“We were put up at the stadium and are being dropped off at different booths by bus now,” said Bobita Kundu Hansda from inside a bus that was going booth to booth. At 8.30am, their bus was between Salt Lake School and Hariyana Vidya Mandir.
Once they reached their booths, they continued till the end of the day. “We are coming in contact of so many people and are scared of exposure but this is our job,” said Kabita Mondal later in the day at Begum Rokeya Smriti Balika Vidyalaya in CJ Block.
Voters were handed a glove, wearing which they were to press the button on the EVM and then dispose it in bright yellow bins outside.
“When I went to vote at 2.30pm they were out of gloves,” shrugged Anup Sen, outside Labony School. “Some voters complained but were too exhausted to walk out and get their own gloves so it was business as usual. The authorities should have ensured better supply of essentials.”
Gloves were missing also at BE Block community hall, where the anganwadi workers reached at 10.30am. At the two booths there, presiding officer Nilotpal Roychoudhury claimed he was not handed any at the distribution centre, while Manik Midda, the presiding officer at the other booth, said he had handed a packet of 50 gloves to Mehera Khatun. The booth had 993 voters and the presiding officer is supposed to have received an equal number of gloves. On being asked, Khatun produced five crumpled plastic gloves from her handbag which she said were too inadequate to offer to anyone.
Lack of distancing
Around 8.45am, voters had formed two queues at the gate of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College in New Town where residents of Action Area 1 were voting. Two women security guards were manning the gate and letting in voters in batches. The women’s queue was long but the men’s was serpentine. It flanked the buildings to the left of the college campus and turned along the pavement into the adjacent lane. This meant in many families, the women were done faster and were waiting for the husband or son to come out or leaving on their own. In case of a lady from AE Block, her husband had not even managed to enter the building complex while her vote was already cast.
For senior citizens, the wait was proving to be trying. Debajyoti Bardhan, 70, has a knee replacement surgery coming up. “I am standing for an hour in the queue. Why can’t they form separate queues for each of the booths?” the DB Block resident said irritably.
Younger residents were upset that entry was restricted right at the gate, a side of which was pushed slightly ajar from time to time to let voters in or out. “Entry and exit should have been separate. There is no social distancing in the queue,” said Ranjani Lahiri of East Enclave.
It could not be known what her reaction was on reaching the college building where the corridor looked like a canal of heads from a distance. There were three adjacent rooms along the corridor and voters of each had formed parallel queues. There was no distance either between people in the same queue or between parallel queues. Some took pictures, possibly to post their anguish on social media.
Those who were to vote in an auxiliary booth at another side of the floor were luckier as voters there were few in number and there were no other booths close by.
Inspector in charge of New Town police station Sanat Das, who arrived with his team for supervision, pointed out that this was the only voting premise in New Town proper while the rest were in the outskirts. “There are as many as 10 booths here, which means about 10,000 voters. Wish they could be decentralised to prevent the gathering. But this rush will reduce after 12noon,” he said. Indeed, by 10.30am, the queue outside the main gate had vanished.
It was extremely crowded outside Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan too, mostly comprising residents from the slums of Duttabad. Their queues snaked across the entire flank of road, a few of their masks were pulled down, their kids played on the street and voters themselves chatted gaily among themselves at a distance certainly too close for comfort.
Facing the heat
Some residents tried to vote later in the day when the sun was blazing but crowds thin. “I only got two passengers in the morning but 10 in the afternoon. The elderly refused to come out early morning when most people got to vote,” said rickshaw driver Gopal Krishna Jana, after dropping a BH Block couple at Apeejay School at 2pm.
S.K. Ghosh of HB Block braved the heat a little before noon. “It’s extremely uncomfortable but at least the crowd is thin so I can reduce chance of infection,” said the 76-year-old who came wearing mask, cap and face shield, and with sanitiser in pocket.
Bharati Banerjee, a 77-year-old of BE Block, voted at 2.15pm. She got Kartik Mondol, a neighbourhood rickshaw-puller, to take her and her son to Bhagabati Devi Balika Vidyalaya. “My cook has bunked. They always do that on polling day. So I prepared a dish for lunch and went to vote on finishing the meal.”
The Pals of BE Block deftly avoid both crowd and the heat by coming at 4pm. “We always vote around this time,” said Ipsita Pal.
Courage against Covid
“I haven’t even been going to the market this last year and had initially thought of skipping the polls too. But I’m 75 and there’s no knowing if I’ll be around to see cast a vote five years later so I came after all,” smiled Babul Chandra Debnath, outside his booth at BK Block’s Acharya Prafulla Chandra High School for Boys.
Then again, Tapas Sen Chowdhury of AL Block reasoned that if was going to the market why could he not go to vote.
A feisty 75-year-old, who had gone to vote at Hariyana Vidya Mandir, recalled horror stories of past elections when her son — a polling agent — had a gun placed to his temple by goons of the opposition party. “I’m the daughter of a policeman. If violence cannot keep me away from voting, what is Covid?” she challenged.
Voters put on gloves and sanitise their hands before entering the municipal school in FE Block. Brinda Sarkar
Inside the booth
It’s not the voters alone who were at risk. It was also polling officials. “Those of us on polling duty were administered the first vaccine but it’s not time yet for the second jab! So many of us are still vulnerable,” said Rakhi Ghosh, presiding officer at Bhagabati Devi Balika Vidyalaya in AE Block.
Anindita Sil, a resident of Sourav Abasan in ED Block, who was also on duty, got her second jab in the nick of time. “But my colleagues ran from pillar to post as there was a shortage of vaccines everywhere. They performed election duty unprotected,” she said.
“All four officers at our booth, including me, were pulled out of reserves in the last minute. We suspect it is because the earlier assigned officers got Covid,” said Aparajita Koner, presiding officer at the New Town college.
Some officers were weary of Covid-positive patients coming to vote but Meena Dey, presiding officer at Labony School, felt that was the least of their concerns. “If we get Covid it will be from exposure at Bidhannagar College, that served as our distribution centre,” she said.
Every officer spoken to described the centre as a chaotic congregation of thousands of officers, screaming, sweating, pushing and shoving their way about. The officers had to report there to collect voting machines, documents etc before polling and to submit the same afterwards.
There was talk of someone turning up there on election-eve and declaring she was Covid positive. Asked why she had come out of isolation, she had reportedly shot back: “Amar chakri-ta ki apni bnachaben?”
The officer-in-charge of election for the Bidhannagar constituency Arnab Saha also recalled with horror how an official had attended a full day’s training and then come up requesting for a substitute as he was Covid positive.
“The polling room we got was tiny and it was impossible to maintain distancing among officers and agents there. Elderly voters were fumbling with Covid protocol too. They were taking off their right glove to sign the register but putting in on their left hand after getting inked. The ink was wiping away and we were having to repeat the process,” said Dey.
A policeman asks Covid patient Mukund Maheshwari to stay out of the HA community hall booth till arrangements are made. Brinda Sarkar
Positive voters
The rule book allowed Covid patients to go vote in the last hour with help from one booth official clad in PPE kit but many lacked clarity about the procedure. “My booth was given one PPE suit. What would the three other officials and agents wear? Shouldn’t Covid protocol require us to dispose of the ink, pen and register used by the voter? These questions were not answered,” said Dey. No patient turned up at her booth.
But there was panic in HA Community Hall when Covid patient Mukund Maheshwari landed up in the final hour. The authorities advised him to leave without voting but he protested. “It is my right to vote,” the young businessman made it clear from behind two masks.
The heads went back into the booth and someone came out with a PPE suit. But instead of one of the polling officials wearing the PPE, as was stipulated by the ECI, they asked Mukund to don it.
He complied but the officers were still nervous. They asked him to wait till other voters had voted but Mukund objected. “You can’t ask a sick person to wait indefinitely,” he said.
By then the sector officer had arrived and the man was allowed to go and cast his vote. But he didn’t get inked as he was in PPE.
“We have more PPEs in reserve and will hand them out at any booth that calls in saying they have Covid patients,” said sector officer Deb Kumar Samanta.
Safety over franchise
Despite the precautions, some people were too scared to go and vote. Others were unwell after their jabs and were unable to go. Yet some others were down with the big C itself.
“My husband and I got our addresses changed on our voter cards just this year and I am upset that we couldn’t vote,” said Annu Bengani, a resident of Uniworld City whose husband was down with fever. As a precaution they stayed away. “I feel even worse since we had to pay a bribe to get the voter cards.”
Polling day business was far from robust for the totowallahs who had queued up in front of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College in New Town. “It seems people are preferring to travel in their own car in fear of infection. We would have done much better if the college was open,” said Soumen Mondal. The totos ply on several routes starting at the New Town bus stand.
Indeed, the polling percentage showed a dip in both constituencies.
Social distancing went for a toss at Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College in New Town which housed 10 booths. Sudeshna Banerjee
Off to court, almost
Are votes more important than voters, some plead. “What was the burning need to hold elections amid the pandemic?” asked 78-year-old Kamlesh Guha outside Labony School. “The world is witness to how dangerous coronavirus is so aren’t we risking voters’ lives by asking them to go vote now?”
If it was really unavoidable, Anup Sen of Labony argues that the authorities should have gone door-to-door to collect votes. This option was provided to those above the age of 80 years this year.
Sanchar Banerjee fielded another poser. “If Board exams can be called off, why not elections? But then if the Kumbh Mela can be allowed, why not elections? They must have a universal approach,” said the IT sector employee who voted at Labony School.
So pertinent is the issue that an organisation — Rama Ghosh and Sunil Chandra Ghosh Memorial Trust in AB Block had contemplated filing a public interest litigation against the Election Commission (EC). “We had to back out due to lack of funds and time but we think that by holding elections during a pandemic the EC is, in fact, depriving many from coming to vote in fear of the disease,” said Arijit Karmakar, a voter from AB Block and managing trustee of the body.
