THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, March 1: A huge database of around 10,000 workforces drawn from different offices and departments has been formed to conduct the coming Lok Sabha election in Palamu.
The database comprises the force of the state government, central government, PSUs, etc.
The number of polling parties is 1,796 for the equal number of polling booths.
One polling party is to be of 1+3, where 1 is the presiding officer while two of the three are polling officials, one and two, and one is a polling personnel.
A total of 7,184 human resources will be required for 1,796 booths @ of 4 officials per booth.
Twenty percent of the pool personnel will be on reserve or standby.
Nodal officer of the Karmik Koshaang, Kundan Kumar, who is additional collector of Palamu, said, ” Our database is complete. The ECI has asked us to have a fleet of 120 per cent of polling personnel, and here we have our strength in full.”
Similarly, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, there were 62 all-women booths here in Palamu. 248 women were drafted for the poll in the 2019 LS election.
The deployment of women on poll duty is exempt from computer randomization. Still, it has to be manual randomization so that a woman poll official finds it easy to perform poll duty at any far-off booth.
All-women booths are as open to male electors as any other booth. Nobody should be confused that all-women booths are where women electors will vote. It’s not that at all. Here, we will cast male and female electors as per the electoral sheets designed for the booth.
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Kundan Kumar said that female police personnel are not in that number to be deployed, and hence, all-women booths are guarded by male police personnel.
Again, there is a departure from the cluster culture of the past elections this time. A day or night ahead of the polling date, the cluster culture will be a low-key affair in this 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Palamu had seen P minus one and P minus two arrivals of the polling parties at the designated clusters, all for the dread of the Naxals in the past when polling parties used to travel incognito either by train; goods train or by road or by anti-land mines vehicle or even getting ferried by helicopters all for the fear of the Naxals.
P minus 1 means a day before the scheduled voting, and P minus 2 means two days before the polling. It was all for avoiding any encounter with the Naxals, who used to be hell-bent on dislocating election/voting.
The ECI has asked for a reduction in the number of clusters, which has to be toed in line, said Kundan Kumar. He said the cluster is only threat perception-based or where direct access to polling booths is fraught with dangers.
Reminiscing about the good old days when polling parties used to reach polling booths hours ahead of the poll start, Kundan Kumar said the ECI desires to have this age-old practice back but with no compromise with the security at all.
Kundan Kumar said there would be a brainstorming session about the setting up clusters no matter how many of them are set up this LS election.
As extremism is on the wane here, the number of clusters will be scaled down. It will directly reach the polling booths and retreat as far as possible.
Extremists are down but not out. Splinter groups like TSPC, JJMP, etc, will not like to be painted as any hindrance to the election as it will then marginalise their vote management premium from the contestants.
The Election Commission of India has asked for a minimal setting up of clusters that, too, must be proportional to the threat perception or security hazard.
The cluster used to be like an ‘inn’ of 15th or 16th century England where travellers used to change horses and take rest and food before embarking on new errands.
Here in Palamu, clusters were the ‘halt’ of the polling parties before reaching their respective booths, understandably for safety and security reasons.
Kundan Kumar, quoting ECI’s directive, said that there will only be need-based clusters where security hazards or security vulnerabilities are most manifest and evident.
According to sources, the assessment of security hazards or vulnerable security is to be done very dispassionately and with clinical precision without overblowing or understating the situation.
