Due to lack of Central Forces, elderly & disabled voting extended

BALURGHAT: Door-to-door polling of elderly and disabled voters in Balurghat Lok Sabha constituency has been extended for two more days due to lack of sufficient Central Forces. Earlier it was decided that this vote will be taken from April 19 to 21 but this has now been extended till April 23. According to an official source, after the election was announced, a total of four companies of Central Forces came. Now, three companies of Central Forces will move from this district to deal with the situation in all the areas where polling will take place in the first phase on April 19. One company of Central Force will stay in Balurghat.

Polling for Balurghat LS seat will be held on April 26. However, it is assumed that an adequate number of Central Forces will arrive in the district before the polls. Subrata Mohanta, an election official, said: “Disabled and elderly persons’ voting will be taken from April 19 to 23. However, three days were earlier fixed for it. Now due to unavailability of Central Forces, two additional days are fixed. Steps have already been taken to run the entire process smoothly. Basically all these processes are being operated from the eight block offices in the district.”

The seven assemblies under Balurghat LS seat are Balurghat, Gangarampur, Kumarganj, Kushmandi, Tapan, Harirampur and North Dinajpur’s Itahar. “The total number of elderly voters (85 years and above of age) in Balurghat LS seat is 1074. The number of disabled voters is 440. This process is divided into two parts. The voting process for senior citizens is called Absentee Voting for Senior Citizens (AVSC) and the voting process for disabled voters is called Absentee Voting for Physically Disabled (AVPD). About 86 polling parties have fixed their votes,” Mohanta stated.A source said that the oldest voter in this district is Jyostna Chakraborty (104). She belongs to Kumarganj.

“She will cast her vote as an elderly voter,” said the source.

Incidentally, the total number of voters in Balurghat LS seat is 15,61,966.

Bijin Krishna, District Election Officer said: “Specific teams will come out from each block office to collect the votes of AVSC and AVPD voters. For this, there will be state police, Central Forces, polling personnel, micro-observers and local BLOs. Ballot papers are coming from Kolkata. All steps have been taken to ensure smooth completion of the entire polling process. Hopefully the whole process will be held smoothly.”