The Election Commission of India’s directive to have women run one-fourth of Bengal’s total polling booths has become a challenge for the administration in districts with many recruited women requesting they be spared from poll duty as they need to take care of their children.

EC sources said that around 28,000 new polling booths have been selected this year over and above the existing 78,000-plus across Bengal. With more booths, demand for polling personnel has gone up accordingly and as a result the need to deploy women polling personnel is required.

“This time there will be 101,916 polling booths across Bengal instead of 77,000-plus in 2016. So, it was an urgency to involve women government employees in poll duty. According to the EC directive, 25 per cent of booths in each district need to be run by women polling personnel,” said an official.

The pandemic necessitated hiring more polling personnel to adhere to Covid-19 protocol. For the same reason, the EC directed 20 per cent polling personnel as reserve instead of 10 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Sources said hundreds of applications from women, mainly mothers of small children, were coming to district election offices with requests to relieve them from poll duty.

Officials in districts said most had informed the EC that they were unable to meet the target because many women had child care responsibilities. Moreover, women couldn’t be deployed to remote areas because of security issues.

In Birbhum, Bankura and East Burdwan, officials said they could ensure 10 per cent of their existing booths would be run by women.

“In Birbhum, we have over 3,900 booths this election but can deploy women personnel only in 500,” said an official.

An official in East Burdwan added that husbands of these women are also government employees, and with both parents working, there was no one to take care of children.

Kalyani Pathak, an assistant teacher of Nivedita Kanya Vidyalaya in Burdwan town, is a case in point. Pathak, who recruited as a presiding officer for a booth in East Burdwan, explained her quandary. “My husband is a state government employee posted in a block office in Birbhum and also involved in election duty. I live in Burdwan town with my year-old son. If I report for poll duty there will be no one to take care of my son. Hundreds of women like me are facing similar problems and have requested authorities to relieve them from poll duty,” she said.

Birbhum district magistrate Devi Prasad Karanam said: “We are getting requests from women polling personnel with genuine problems. We will assess how many women-run polling booths we can have.”

Bankura district magistrate K Radhika Aiyar echoed Karanam and said: “We need to assess the number of women who could be deployed on poll duty.”