Coimbatore: The city corporation’s failure to issue booth slips caused widespread confusion among voters, many of who found it difficult to locate their polling booths, on Saturday. This also forced a few voters to return home without exercising their right to franchise.
The voters ran from pillar to post, sometimes for hours together, to identify their polling booths. They hardly received any guidance from the staff deployed at the booths, as the latter lacked training.
In most cases, political party representatives, who were available 200 metres away from polling centres, came to the rescue of voters.
Vijaya, a resident of Shoba Nagar, said, “We did not receive booth slips and ran from pillar to post, as our names were not listed in the booth, where we used to cast our votes. After much struggling, three of our family members located their polling centre at VG Rao Nagar.”
Many polling centres lacked information to guide the voters to the right booths. Availability of basic information, such as areas assigned to a polling booth and how to access election commission website link to locate voter details, could have lessened the issues faced by the voters, K P Aravindan, a social worker from Avarampalayam, said. He said the polling booth staff at VG Rao Nagar didn’t know how to check the list and turned away many people without providing them required guidance. “I helped more than 20 people, who were turned away by the staff, to cast their votes.”
Raja Kumar, a voter from Ramanathapuram, said he spent two hours trying to locate the polling booth. A food delivery agent, Kumar said he could have earned 200 by that time.