The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Police personnel miss chance to vote

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Police personnel miss chance to vote

Meera Srinivasan

CHENNAI: They witnessed all the action and yet most were not part of it. Several police personnel in the city, who were out there from mid-April to ensure a peaceful polling, either did not know about the postal ballot facility introduced for government servants or found that they had run out of time to apply.

"[The] authorities told us that a postal ballot system was going to be introduced, but we were not informed of anything," said another officer in Chepauk.

Earlier this week, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Naresh Gupta had said officials on election duty could exercise their franchise using postal ballot papers.

They needed to apply in Form-12 to the Assistant Returning Officers/ROs of their constituencies. Applicants could also collect the postal ballots in person or by post at least three days before the polling date, said a release from the CEO.

In fact, when Mr. Gupta was informed a couple of days ago about government employees not getting their postal ballots, he promised to look into it and gave specific instructions.

As for those who missed out, this is what District Election Officer M.P. Vijayakumar had to say on Monday: "They should have applied in advance and exercised their franchise."

The few police personnel, who were aware of the system, blamed the "short notice" and "communication gap" as reasons for their not having applied early enough.

"I have been serving for over 20 years but I have not even voted once, as I have always been on patrol," said a constable on duty at Triplicane.

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