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Despite awareness campaigns, voters were confused about how to vote for panels in the municipal corporation elections
In Mumbra, despite awareness campaigns, voters were confused about how to vote for panels in the municipal corporation elections.
People wait in a queue to cast votes at Kroot school in Wanawadi on Thursday. (Express photographs by Arul Horizon)
“Nahin, awaaz nahin aaya, aapka vote nahin hua hain (No, the beep sound was not heard, your vote has not been cast),” says a poll officer to a citizen who was walking out believing he had cast his vote at a Mumbra polling station, which comes under the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) jurisdiction. The poll officer explained that the voter needed to cast four votes for his vote to be counted, and then went about explaining how the process worked.
The Mumbra voter was not the only one confused. In 28 of the 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra where elections were held on Thursday, electors had to cast three or four separate votes in a single visit to the polling booth. The voting under a three- or four-member ward system marked a departure from the traditional one-ward-one-corporator model, leading to uncertainty among voters.
An official at the St Bosco School voting centre in Mumbra said that while awareness drives had been carried out, there was still some confusion among voters. “One confusion was that while during trials we had four separate machines, at the centre, we just had three machines since in two panels there were only two contestants, whose names fit on one machine. This confused some people who said they were told to vote on four machines,” the poll officer said.
An official at the St Bosco School voting centre in Mumbra said that while awareness drives had been carried out, there was still some confusion among voters. “ (Source: Express Photo)
Shyam Naik, the presiding officer for Booth no 14 at the school, explained that the number of machines used depended on the number of contestants per panel. “ If more people are contesting, the number of machines goes up,” Naik said. “We had put up photographs of how polling for the four panels would work right outside the polling booth so that people can understand how the process will work,” he added.
An official added that people who had voted in the TMC elections of 2017 had clarity on the process, as there was a panel system even then, but new voters were a bit confused, he admitted.
Another issue faced by voters was that members of the same family living in one place had to go to different places. Ali Nawaz, who voted this time, said that while his father and brother polled at one centre, his mother had to vote at another centre, while his name was at a school some distance from his mother’s polling booth. “Our family had to move from one polling centre to another for all of us to cast our votes,” he said.
When asked for the reason behind the same, Naik said, “Since for civic polls, constituencies are smaller, at times the roll for one centre ends abruptly and the others are allotted to another centre.” Another official said that at times, when the family members register separately, it could lead to changes in their voting centres.
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