Election officer warns poll duty evaders

Many government employees are capable of finding  innovative and peculiar ways to escape from election duty. But now, they have to think twice before requesting the authorities concerned to exempt them, warned BBMP commissioner and Bangalore district election officer Siddaiah.

About 250 employees who were assigned poll duty requested  to be exclude from the work, he said on Wednesday.

“Many of them wanted to be exempted from election duty citing health problems. We are looking into their requests. We will not tolerate employees who want to be exempted from poll duty on silly reasons such as suffering from backache or having to look after their aged parents. Most of us have aged parents and we also suffer from backaches, but we don’t cite that as a reason to escape the poll duty,’’ said Siddaiah.

 According to him, Bangalore district needs 31,933  staff (excluding police personnel) to conduct the polls in 28 assembly segments.

“We have collected the data of 45,000 employees for the election duty. We needed 31,933  of them, and till date about 250 of them have requested exemption. We expect to receive an additional 2,000 requests from the employees seeking exclusion from the poll duty,’’ he said.

Bangalore district will have 7,258 polling stations for the 28 assembly segments. While Shivajinagar assembly segment will have 181 polling stations, Bangalore South will have the largest number of polling stations with 417.  Among the 7,258 polling stations, 1,782 have been identified as hypersensitive and 2,153 as sensitive ones. Gandhinagar assembly segment leads the list with 171 hypersensitive polling stations. “Paramilitary forces will be deputed at such stations,’’ Siddaiah said.