Hurdles continue to be posed to the smooth conduct of elections to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). The civic body itself is receiving 150 to 200 applications every day from teachers and other government employees pleading for exemption from election duty.
Most of these letters were from teachersciting all kinds of reasons like health problems, maternity leave and even marriage and obsequies as reasons for the exemption, civic officials said on condition of anonymity.
The BBMP headquarters and branch offices here though sport notice-boards declaring that no application for exemption would be considered unless on grave grounds.
BBMP joint commissioner (welfare) AM Kunjappa said that as of now they were rejecting all requests for exemption from poll duty.
“We are considering the applications only if the grounds under which exemption has been sought are genuine and compelling. The poll duty will definitely not affect the teachers’ exam work, as the election will be held on Sunday. Even the training for teachers is scheduled for March21, a Sunday. No exams have been scheduled for Saturdays and Sundays over the next two weeks,” he said.
The civic body had earlier issued a strict warning that criminal cases would be filed against those abstaining from poll duty.
The BBMP has decided to treat the March-21 training programme as a testing ground. “After analysing the attendance of the staff on that day, we will decide whether we need more poll staff,” another official said.
About 35,000 personnel are required for the 6,590 polling booths set up in 198 BBMP wards.
“We had requested BBMP last week to relieve us from the poll duty. As the training programme and exam duties will clash, there will be pressure on teachers. It will be difficult for us to manage both the things at the same time. We are hoping that they will spare us from poll duty this time,” PU lecturers' association president GK Sriram told DNA.
However, the BBMP is deploying teachers from various other districts of the state for poll duty as an alternative, as the number of exemption applications are increasing.
“We are also trying to deploy bank staff for the poll duty. We are also getting about 40% of the polling personnel from other parts of the state such as Chikkaballapur, Nelamangala and Ramanagara,” said an official from BBMP.
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