An open letter from a polling officer; “The lady’s booth had toilets without water”

When I got my appointment letter as a polling officer I was very much excited, though it was not first time that I had been chosen for election duty but this time I got the duty in the booth itself. Anyways, our team reached NATRIP at 9:30am on April 17, 2019.

After decoding we got the name of polling station we had to collect our materials from the counter allotted standing in a big queue with males, as there was no separate queue for ladies. The weather was also too hot that day.
After getting the materials we had our lunch & started searching our allotted vehicle. But, we didn’t get after searching for 1hour & giving announcement four times.Then we rushed towards transport office located in NATRIP. They informed us that our allotted vehicle had been changed & a new vehicle was provided. But interesting thing was that we weren’t even informed about that matter & we got harassed like anything for 2hrs.

Within half an hour we reached our destination. Earlier we heard that all the pink booths (lady officers booth) will be well equipped & well decorated but there also we were shocked. Toilets were there but the tap had not water. Without water how we had managed the days, readers, I leave it up to you to understand.

Only one bulb was there in the room but it was not sufficient for us to do our work which involved writing among many other things which need brightness. With the cooperation of the sector officer Sir & BLO we could manage one more bulb for our room.

One more important thing… in a booth like ours where all the officers were ladies & doing the work for the first time, the no. of voters were 962 which was very much challenging. We could have been sent to a booth which were having lesser no. of voters.

Though situation was not favourable for us but we did our best to serve the nation. I salute all those officers who were appointed in the remote areas where facilities are almost nil still they did their work with dedication to run the voting process smoothly.

Lastly I want to request our administration to take some steps on those matters in the next election so that we can do the national duty willfully.

The author of this open letter is a teacher by profession.