Hyderabad: Delay in postal ballots worrisome
The possibility of their votes reaching the respective constituency is getting dimmer.
Hyderabad: Many government employees who were on election duty are yet to receive their postal ballots. The last date to mark the postal ballots and return them is December 11, counting day.
The possibility of their votes reaching the respective constituency is getting dimmer. Employees have requested an alternative in the form of receiving centres for their postal ballots.
It is estimated that of the 1.5 lakh government employees, 80,000 had applied for postal ballots. Representations have been sent on the matter to the Chief Election Commissioner.
Some staff suspected that the missing postal ballots was the outcome of a devious plot. N. Kishtaiah, a government school teacher based in Mahbubnagar, who was posted in Wanaparthy constituency on election duty, said, “We sent our requisition forms before the deadline collectively. Some of us received the postal ballots and the others did not.”
He said only 30 per cent of the people in his group who had sent requisition forms had received their postal ballots, and 70 per cent had not. “This has the potential to change the result. We suspect that certain voters have been deliberately sidelined from the list,” he claimed.
Ms Uma Bhrugabanda from English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), who was posted at Secunderabad Cantonment constituency, stated: “Employees applied for postal ballots during the election training period and submitted their particulars well in time. We are still waiting for their turn. There are many people like us. We don’t know what happened to the postal ballot, whether they were lost or were not delivered at all.”
Some postal ballots reached employees even as late as December 8. There was no delivery of postal ballots on Sunday. The postal ballots which will be sent on Monday will reach only after two or three days.
According to information from the EC, the final figure with regard to postal ballots has not been tabulated. There would be a review meeting regarding the counting of votes where they would be summarised. The responsibility of the distribution of postal ballots lies on the district election officer concerned.