Poll related controversy remains sticky in CCpur
Source: The Sangai Express

CCpur, April 24 2019: It was the enlistment of essential services personnel from the water supply, electricity, and traffic etc that stoked the first controversy as electricity recharge points remained closed, pipes ran dry and no traffic was regulated for days.

Then it was the allegation about strong room entry, and now it was a shortfall in disbursement of remuneration to polling officials that has kept the district infested with poll related controversy one after the other.

Yesterday, officials from the District Election Office began disbursing the remuneration for training but it was halted halfway as some polling personnel began protesting the disbursement for just a single day saying that men had attended the training for four days while women attended for six days.

Later in the day, the department issued a clarification and advised the polling officials to collect two days remuneration, as against one day initially offered, within two days (Wednesday and Thursday).

Accordingly, the disbursement resumed today and is likely to continue till tomorrow.

The State Government, has in the past, conducted numerous elections from District Council to State Assembly and the Lok Sabha polls but rarely were essential services personnel deployed at the cost of public convenience.

Women employees were, for the first time, deployed in poll duties at the just concluded parliamentary election.

In fact, they manned almost a third of the 333 Polling Stations in the district but there still appears to be a dearth in polling personnel as electricity prepaid counters remained closed for two days.

Water supply, which initially was said to have been affected for a week remains dry until today as the power connection to the main tank remains to be restored.

The continuous bout of cyclonic storm following the poll has clearly compounded the woes but many have now begun to wander if such scale of scarcity could have been avoided.

The controversy surrounding the opening of the EVM strong rooms were also the first for the district.

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