The city and neighbouring Howrah may witness a unique site this Assembly polls as the Election Commission guideline of setting up polling booths only on ground floors have prompted the poll officials to consider the option of erecting temporary structures blocking roads or lanes.
“Many of the polling stations across the state are set up on the first floor of schools, civic bodies or other government buildings. Now, as all polling stations need to be set up on the ground level, the authorities are finding it difficult to arrange additional space to relocate the booths. The problem is acute in Calcutta and Howrah where available space is limited,” said a senior government official.
Though it is yet to be finalised how many temporary booths need to be set up by blocking roads in the state, primary estimate by officials suggests that such 50-odd polling booths in South Calcutta, 400-odd in North Calcutta and 200-odd in Howrah would be temporary structures.
“The problem is so acute that we might be forced to set up temporary structures to set up additional booths by blocking roads in Calcutta and Howrah. But we are not sure how the requirements of polling officials and security forces like toilets and lodging would be arranged in case of temporary structures,” said a senior officials.
According to sources, in case of setting up of booths in school and government buildings, the officials don’t have to arrange lodging and toilet facilities for the polling officials and security forces as the facilities are available at these premises.
Setting up of temporary structures by blocking roads would have other problems too.
For example, if booths are set up by blocking roads, there could be problems in case of any law and order situation and fire incidents.
The issue was raised before the full bench of the EC last week when it had held discussions with the government officials.
The EC said that they would not mind if some roads are blocked to set up booths as roads in Calcutta are often blocked to hold Durga Puja,” said an official.
A section of the officials said that in case of temporary booths, requirement of security forces would be high as intimading voters in a temporary structure is likely to be easier compared to a school building or any permanent structure.
Sources said that the trouble has turned more critical after the EC made it clear that no booth would have more than 1,050 voters.
“We have to set up 22,887 auxiliary booths due to the maximum limit of voters in a booth. It is always difficult to set up so many additional booths in existing polling premises. Now, the problem has been compounded as all the booths located on the first floor have to be brought down to the ground level,” said a source.
Another official said that it would be real trouble to set up 1.01 lakh booth in ground floor only. In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the state had 78,903 booths while booths in the first floor was allowed.