1,000 leaders clad in safety gear cast votes for RS seats
NEW DELHI:An Election Commission (EC) official first heard about the term personal protective equipment (PPE) in March when it entered the popular lexicon amid the worsening Covid-19 pandemic. Even then, he thought it was solely for doctors and others involved in tackling the disease. Little did the official know that a few months later he would find himself in a PPE suit conducting a Rajya Sabha election in Madhya Pradesh on Friday.
“For about 45 minutes, when the only Covid-19 positive legislator came to vote, all the polling officials were in PPE suits, like the MLA,” the official said. “It took some of us nearly as long to put the suits on. ”
The legislator was brought for voting in an ambulance that was sanitised multiple times. To further reduce the risk of transmission, all fans and coolers were switched off at the polling booth when he voted.
PPE suits and ambulances were part of EC’s guidelines for conducting elections to vacant Rajya Sabha seats across eight states. This was the first major voting exercise since the pandemic prompted sweeping measures in March to ensure social distancing to check its spread. The polls were earlier scheduled for March.
Nearly 1,000 legislators participated in the polling in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Rajasthan.
Meghalaya’s chief electoral officer, F R Kharkongor, called the election challenging and added they revisited their entire rulebook and re-evaluated the procedure. “But after a few hiccups, we managed fine.”
Another EC official in the state said a coughing legislator sent them into a tizzy for a few seconds. “But once the doctor examined the legislator, we realised it was because the legislator choked on something...”
In Andhra Pradesh, a poll official said entourages that normally accompany the chief minister and senior ministers when they come to vote were subdued. “Unlike previous elections, the mood was somber. Electors came, voted, and left almost immediately,” the official said.
The Madhya Pradesh official cited above said the atmosphere was more “businesslike”.
A poll official in Gujarat said the discharge and an end to the quarantine period of three lawmakers tested Covid-19 positive helped smoothen the election process. The election was “smooth sailing”, said Rajasthan’s top poll official Anand Kumar. “...[We] were extra cautious. But all in all, it went off pretty well.”