Kolkata: The Election Commission (EC) is facing a daunting task to make seating arrangements for the agents of all political parties at polling booths in Baranagar with Dum Dum Parliamentary constituency (PC) and Baranagar Assembly constituency having polls on the same day, June 1.
Many polling booths are cramped for space when it comes to accommodation of polling agents of all political parties contesting the elections.
Baranagar Assembly is one of the constituencies that comes under the Dum Dum PC and so, in the polling booths at Baranagar on June 1, the voters will have to press the button of two EVMs — one for electing the candidate of Dum Dum and another for electing the candidate for Baranagar.
According to the poll watchdog, a total of 14 candidates are contesting in Dum Dum Lok Sabha seat while for Baranagar Assembly seat, there are a total of 8 candidates, taking the toal to 22. Now, if all political parties in the fray have at least one polling agent in each of the polling booths, it is impossible to have seating arrangements at all
polling booths.
According to sources, some clubs in Baranagar have also been turned into polling booths this time and it is practically not possible to make seating arrangements of all political parties’ agents in these booths. Besides the polling agents, four voting personnel also need to sit in the polling booth. The total number of booths in Baranagar are 252, of which 32 has been identified as small where integrating seating facilities will
be a challenge.
An administrative official of Baranagar Municipality said that all the parties, particularly the ‘Independent’ candidates, do not have enough polling agents to be present in all the booths so the situation can
be managed.
“It is our duty to ensure that all political parties who have filed nominations for contesting the polls and willing to have their agent in the booths are able to do so. We have plans to have temporary camps inside such polling premises to address the issue,” an EC
official said.