Covid-19 protocol: Number of polling stations increased in Assam

Feb. 26: The schedule for the forthcoming Assam Assembly Elections, 2021 was declared by Sunil Arora, 23rd Chief Election Commissioner of India (CEC) in an important press conference on Friday evening. Assam will go for the assembly polls in three phases on 27 March, 1 April and 6 April. Due to COVID-19, every polling station this time will have a maximum of 1000 voters. So naturally, the number of polling stations have been increased.

The total number of polling stations in Assam has been increased from 24,890 in 2016 to over 33,530 in 2021.There has been an increase of 34.71 percent in the percentage of number of polling stations. The increase in polling stations also means that there would be an increase in the number of personnel. Moreover, all polling personnel involved in the process of Assembly Elections will be vaccinated.

The Commission has issued instructions to the Chief Electoral Officers of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry to ensure that every Polling Station needs to be mandatary on ground floor and, shall have good access road leading to Polling station building and is equipped with Assured Minimum Facilities. This will be further supplemented with COVID mitigation facilities like sanitisers, thermal scanner, soap etc.

A total of 2,32,44,454 electors as per electoral roll will be exercising their franchise in the ensuing Assembly elections in Assam, out of which, 2,31,82,309 are general voters, 62,134 service voters and 11 overseas voters.