Mumbai. You must have heard and seen yourself that voting takes place till 6 pm and the voters who are standing in the queue are allowed to vote. In such a situation, voting usually ends by 7 o’clock at the latest. But a very strange incident has come to light in Palghar Lok Sabha seat of Maharashtra. Voting continued till 9.30 pm at three polling stations here. It is being told that there were so many people in the queue that it was 9.30 before everyone could exercise their rights. A major reason for this is said to be that due to the heat, people came to the polling station late in the evening to vote.
According to Mid-Day report, election officials said that many voters reached the polling booth shortly before the end of voting and due to the slow speed of recording votes by EVMs, the voting time had to be extended. According to the report, there was a lot of chaos at the polling booth in Dahanu, as many booths did not even have fans, due to which voters had to sweat a lot to cast their vote. Not only this, a voter in Vasai also fainted due to the extreme heat on Monday afternoon. After the voter became unconscious, there was no stretcher available, so the polling station officials lifted the voter by his hands and legs.
Palghar Lok Sabha seat where voting took place till 9.30 pm. A total of 63.91 percent voting took place there. Deputy Collector Vijaya Jadhav who was the nodal officer of Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP). He said that special permission was sought to extend the voting time till 9.30 pm, because a large number of people had come to vote. The nodal officer told Mid-Day that we had to allow all the people coming to the polling booth to vote. So we closed the gate and those who had come inside were allowed to continue voting. Due to this, voting continued even after 9 pm and it was taking time to record each vote on the EVM.
Local people who came to vote during the day said that the temperature was rising and everyone was feeling the heat. There were not even fans at some polling stations, where polling officials had to endure the heat all day but could not say a word because they were government officials. Sanjeev Joshi, a resident of Dahanu, said that apart from this, we could not even get photographs of their ordeal as no one was allowed to carry mobile phones inside the polling stations.
Voters at the Bahdoli polling station told Mid-Day that the voting process went at a very slow pace. A voter said that about 100 people were standing in the queue at 8 pm on the voting day. The district administration claimed that all the polling stations were equipped with medical kits and other facilities. Shades were installed so that voters standing in queues could stand under some shade. Apart from this, drinking water facility, medicines and first aid kits were provided at every polling station in Palghar district.
Tags: Loksabha Election 2024, Loksabha Elections, Maharashtra news
FIRST PUBLISHED : May 22, 2024, 16:39 IST