Supervising the polling process turned out to be a pleasant experience for Jeen Varghese, the presiding officer of the all-women pink booth in Kochi city.
Besides Ms. Varghese, the head of Electronics department of BPC College, Piravom, T.R. Remi of Kshethra Pravesana Memorial Vocational Higher Secondary School, Poothotta, M.C. Millet of Government Higher Secondary School, Puthenthode, and V. Sreevidya, Block Development Officer, Kochi, were also part of the team of officials who organised polling from the booth set up at SRV Lower Primary School.
The entrance to the 91st booth was decked up using pink balloons and artificial flowers to give the room a festive look. “It was my first assignment at a pink booth. All the polling officials and Student Police Corps members offered the required support for the team,” said Ms. Varghese. The booth saw brisk voting from the morning hours as 36% of votes were polled during the first four hours.
Technical snags
Technical snags in electronic voting machines (EVMs) disrupted polling in a few booths in the constituency.
Polling began an hour late at the booth set up at the Elamkulam Village Office in Ernakulam constituency as the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machine developed some snags. Later, the machine was reset by technicians. Many voters returned home after witnessing the serpentine queue of those who had turned up earlier.
Polling was also disrupted at the 31st booth at Vennala High School as the EVM developed a technical snag. The machine developed the snag at 8.57 a.m. even as 157 votes were polled in the machine. Voters were seen patiently waiting for the issue to be resolved. Polling was resumed after nearly 45 minutes.
At Katari Bagh
The month-long electioneering seemed to have failed to generate enthusiasm among a section of the voters of Katari Bagh in Kochi. Of the 1,155 voters of booth number 140 set up at Kendriya Vidyalaya, only 60 voters exercised their franchise till 1 p.m. “The voters are mostly officials of the Indian Navy. This is one of the booths in the city with lower voter turnout,” said the presiding officer of the booth.
The first three hours of polling witnessed 22 persons turning up, which accounted for 1.9% of the total voters. By 12 noon, the polling slowly picked up and 30 more voters came to the booth to exercise their franchise, thus taking the total count to 52 persons and 4.5% of the total votes. It was slightly better at booth number 138 where 18.5% of votes were polled by 1 p.m.
