Vijayawada: Election Commission urged to provide basic amenities to polling staff in municipal elections

Vijayawada: Amaravati JAC has requested the Election Commission and the concerned higher officials to take measures to ensure basic facilities to the polling staff in the ensuing municipal elections to be held next month. Amaravati JAC chairman Bopparaju Venkateswarlu and secretary general YV Rao in a press release regretted that the election staff who attended the panchayat polls at some polling stations in the State faced many hardships due to lack of facilities at the polling centres.

The two leaders requested the SEC and officials concerned to provide amenities like washrooms, food and transport facility to the polling staff, who will attend the municipal polls next month. The JAC has stated that men, material and money are very important for the elections. The ground level local officials had faced problems due to shortage of funds. The local officials could not provide amenities to the election staff in the mandals due to lack of planning, shortage of funds and adequate time to do the arrangements, they said.

The JAC leaders have said the Police, Revenue and other department officials successfully conducted the four phases of panchayat elections in spite of short period of time. They expressed deep regrets on the death of VRA and other employees during the polling duty and conveyed condolences to their family members. They said that the expenditure incurred during the 2019 General Elections has not released till now and added that the ground level staff and officials had been spending money taking loans for conducting the elections.

On the other hand, polling staff was disappointed at some places with the poor facilities arranged at the polling stations. At some places even washrooms were not provided to the polling staff. Food also served late at some places. The authorities have not arranged RTC buses for the return journey of the polling staff from interior polling stations during late night.