Essential service voters to cast their votes through postal ballot in Cachar

March 24: “Voting through postal ballot for accepted Absentee Voters on Essential services for those who applied through Form 12D will be facilitated on 25, 26 and 27 March, 2021 in Postal Voting Centres for Cachar district. The Postal Voting Centres are -LA-9 Silchar, Silchar Circle office ; LA-14 Barkhola BDO Office, Barkhola; LA-11 Dholai, BDO Office, Narsingpur and concerned Circle Offices for all other remaining LACs.” This statement had been made by Deputy Commissioner Cachar and District Election Officer Keerthi Jalli here in Silchar on Wednesday.

While sharing her reaction about facilitating voting through postal ballot to Absentee Voters on Essential Services, Jalli said, “Notified essential services include health workers under Health Department, Assam, Ambulance Services; traffic police ; fire and emergency services; electricity department, officials on long distance service under ASTC, media persons certified by ECI for Poll day, BSNL, Railways, Aviation, Shipping”.

“All notified essential service voters are those whose services are necessary for our day-to-day life, especially on Poll Day and thereby, the Postal voting centers are set up to ensure they exercise their right to vote. I hope they make use of this option and ensure casting of their right to vote”, she added. It is pertinent to mention here that at present, postal ballots are issued to absentee voters which include octogenarian voters, specially abled persons and Covid patients.

While Joint Director of Health, Cachar Dr Sudip Jyoti Das made a statement that there were no Covid patients during the timeline fixed for submission of Form 12D either at home or in quarantine facility as per report submitted by Health Department to the Election office.

Meanwhile, Additional Deputy Commissioner Cachar and in-charge Postal Ballot Paper Cell Lalita Rongpipi stated that a total number of 5,292 applications of absentee voters had been accepted for postal ballot ,which include senior citizens, PWD voters and essential service voters, while a total number of 695 applications had been rejected so far. She further stated that the rejected applicants of Form 12D are intimated so that they can cast their votes at their respective polling stations.

It is worth mentioning that accepted essential service voters will vote in the Postal voting centers of their respective LACs, that is, LACs where they are voters. The time for voting in Postal voting centers are 25 to 27 March, 2021 from 9 am to 5 pm as per ECI’s guidelines. On poll day, wheel chairs and E-rickshaws will be provided by the District Administration Cachar to the PWD voters in each constituency.