Pune: Polling officers miss out on voting even as EC ensures provisions

In Pune district, 78,000 polling officers and security staff were deployed across 8,383 polling stations.

But some teachers on polling duty are facing problems even after filling out form 12A. A teacher from Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar said, “There are six polling officers who got trained with me here along with a big team. We had filled out the forms with our names and all the required details, but now our names are not in the voter’s list and we are being told we can’t vote”.

On March 7, 2024, Election commission had sent out a notice along with detailed guidelines to ensure all provisions of Rule 20 of the conduct of Elections Rules are followed, so voters on election duty can cast their votes.

Deputy collector, Dadasaheb Gite, who is working as Assistant Returning Officer for the Shivaji Nagar assembly constituency cast his vote through postal ballot to Ahmednagar. He said, “Of all the applications I received for the postal ballot, 100 percent of them could cast their vote. For the EDC certificate, during their first training session we had attached form 12 and 12A with their election duty orders, we also reminded them to fill out the forms in the second training session. Those who had filled out the forms can cast their votes at the facilitation centre. We tried to not leave anyone behind. Those left are the ones who didn’t fill out the forms. But we did provide these forms to everyone in my assembly, I myself stapled them”.