Over 3.32L govt employees, 1.3L police to be engaged in election duty on April 19

CHENNAI: Over 3.32 lakh government employees and 1.3 lakh police personnel would be deployed on election duty in the state on Friday. The Tamil Nadu Election Commission has also roped in retired police personnel and ex-servicemen in the state and armed police from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh in addition to the 190 Central Armed Police (CAPF) for the election duty to ensure free and fair polls in the state.

A total of 12,220 ex-servicemen, and 1,931 retired police personnel in the state have been roped in for the election duty, while 3,500 armed police personnel from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh have been roped in addition to 190 Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) to deploy in the election duty in the state that goes for the first phase of the polling, TN Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo told journalists at the Secretariat while briefing on the arrangement for the general polls on Friday.

The voting would commence at 7 am and continue till 6 pm. The electorates who are on the premises of the polling station on or before 6 pm would be given tokens to enable them to vote, he said.

Ahead of the polling commences, the polling officials will carry out mock polling in the presence of booth agents. A total of 50 votes would be exercised, as part of the exercise, to check the electronic voting machines. "We have 20% extra EVMs to replace if any machines develop technical snags. A zonal-level team, comprising BHEL engineers and polling officials, will also attend to the issues in the polling machine immediately and act accordingly to ensure smooth conduct of polling," he said.

He also pointed out that they have identified as many as 8,050 polling stations as sensitive and 181 polling stations as critical. They have arrived at these numbers as sensitive and critical polling stations after holding elaborate discussions with the representatives of the political parties and general, police and expenditure observers. "After the polling, we will retain 15 companies of CAPF; they will be engaged in the first line of three-tier security arrangements in the counting centers," said Sahoo.

More than a lakh out of 6.14 lakh elderly persons and PwDs exercised their franchises through postal votes.

The EC has also taken efforts to arrange pick-up and drop facilities for electorates aged 85 years and older and the persons with disabilities. "If they can contact the call center 1950 or raise a request in the Saksham App for pick-up and drop. The district election officer will take the necessary measures," he said and he also noted that they have made arrangements to facilitate the PwDs exercising their franchises without trouble. Elderly, pregnant women and PwDs would be given priority in the queue to vote.

"Web cameras are being installed in 44,800 polling stations in the state, which has a total of 68,321 polling stations in 39 constituencies. It will be monitored by a web camera system," Sahoo added.

On postal votes, Sahoo said the officials on election duty can vote postal votes till 6 pm on April 18. Those who are unable to vote at the training centers can send their votes through a register post to the Returning Officer of the respective constituency. "The Election Officers will take the necessary measures to dispatch the postal votes to the counting centers by June 3," he said.

ALTERNATIVE DOCUMENTS:

On alternative documents to vote, Sahoo said that there were a total of 12 documents, apart from the electronic photo identification card (EPCI), that can be used to exercise one's vote. This includes - Aadhar card, Pan Card, Unique Disability Card, Service Identity Card, Bank passbooks, MGNREGA job card, health insurance, driving license, passport, smart card, pension document and official identity card.