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BMC polls: Cops feel left out of voting process

Even though they were instrumental in ensuring a peaceful election in the city on Thursday, a large portion of the police force have never exercised their franchise.

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Even though they were instrumental in ensuring a peaceful election in the city on Thursday, a large portion of the police force have never exercised their franchise. In fact, some of them don’t even have voter IDs or ration cards.

With 24,000 policemen enlisted for election duty on February 16, the cops successfully managed voter crowds, guided them to their polling booths, and provided security to main election offices and counting stations. Yet, most of them have never voted even once in their lives.

Constable SS Ghute, 28, posted at Pant Nagar police station in Ghatkopar, was manning the booth in Vikhroli on Thursday. But the young cop has himself never had his finger inked.

Another cop  said, “The government never thinks about us and now EC has also not taken us into account. This hurts us. We work so hard and still we don’t have a say in the city’s governance.”

BF Patel, ASI, Pant Nagar, can’t even recall when he voted last. And constable Uttam Thackeray, 44, has voted only once. Others have voted maybe once or twice in all their years of service. All of them have been assigned election duty almost every time. And it’s a hard day’s work which sometimes lasts as long as 48 hours at locations far away from the police personnel’s homes, making it impossible for them to vote.

Thousands of home guards were also unable to cast their votes. Trushant Parab, who works in Ward 105, said, “Postal ballots increase the government’s headache and expenditure. That’s why we also keep mum.”

However, a police officer from the crime branch said, “Most of us don’t even have voter IDs and names in the voter list. Ration cards are also rare as we hardly get anything from ration shops these days.”

“I vote every time. For senior officials taking an hour off is not a problem. But yes, for others deployed on bandobast it is not an easy job,” said Deven Bharti, additional CP, crime branch.

Commissioner of police (CP) in Thane, KP Raghuvanshi has voted just once in his three-decade-long service in the police department. He said, “Of over 2 lakh policemen in the state, 75,000 are in Mumbai and Thane, but very few use the postal ballot option. Eventually, most are left out of the election process.”

A BMC official said, “These officials are reluctant to vote despite our repeated messages to apply for postal ballots which can be obtained three days before the poll.”

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