CHENNAI: Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo on Thursday said all polling arrangements are in place for the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu on Friday.
A total of 6.23 crore voters — 3.06 crore men, 3.17 crore women, and 8,467 persons of third gender — will decide the fate of 950 contestants, including 76 women candidates. Polling will be held in all the 39 Lok Sabha seats between 7am and 6pm. All the voters who have joined the queue by 6pm will be given tokens and will be allowed to vote.
At the secretariat in Chennai, a state-level control room has been set up to monitor live-streaming of polling from across Tamil Nadu. Out of 68,321 stations in the state, web streaming will be available for over 44,000 polling stations. A team of 13 DRO-cadre officials will be randomly monitoring the poll process in these polling stations from the control room. They will also receive complaints regarding polling and forward them to the authorities in the districts for expeditious action.
Senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PwDs) can get pick-up and drop facility from their residences to the polling station through Saksham app, by calling 1950, or by calling the District Control Room. “Though the facility was available even in the 2021 Assembly elections, it has now been streamlined to help needy voters to the maximum extent possible,” the CEO told TNIE.
Priority in queue for PwDs, pregnant women
Arrangements have also been made to provide free bus passes to help senior citizens, persons with visual and locomotive disabilities, and voters with impaired movement to access public transport on the polling day. PwDs and pregnant women will get priority to vote in polling station queues. Special arrangements have been made for persons with disabilities. Each polling station should have at least one ramp and enough wheelchairs. There will
be volunteers to help PwDs, pregnant women, and senior citizens. Besides, the ECI has also rolled out a facility to know the Queue Status of each polling station on Friday. This can be seen by browsing https://erolls.tn.gov.in/Queue by the voters before visiting their polling stations. There will be 3.32 lakh polling personnel engaged in polling-related work.