No postal ballot papers for voters above 65 years, EC tweaks its earlier order

PATNA: Amending its earlier order, the Election Commission (EC) has now decided to not to issue postal ballot papers to electorate above the age of 65 years in the upcoming assembly election and bypoll in the state.
Instead, the facility will be limited to only those voters above the age of 80 years, people engaged in essential services and the Covid-19 patients/suspects in quarantine.
In a press communique issued on Thursday, the EC said that the decision was taken in view of constraints of logistics, manpower and safety protocols of the Covid-19 pandemic. Around 34,000 new polling booths were likely to be added in the state after the voters’ strength at each polling booth was restricted to not more than 1,000 to minimise the chances of the voters getting infected with the deadly virus.
Similarly, 1.8 lakh additional polling personnel and a large number of vehicles would be required to deal with 1.06 lakh polling booths for the upcoming assembly polls as well as byelection in the state.
“The new challenges came to light during frequent assessment of field preparations in the run up to the elections in the state,” the release issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) revealed.
The EC had earlier recommended extension of optional postal ballot facility to voters above the age of 65 years in order to minimise their vulnerability and exposure at the polling booths and to Covid positive voters and also voters under quarantine so that they were not deprived of their right to vote. The Ministry of Law and Justice had notified the amended rules accordingly on last June 16.
Last week a senior RJD leader and Rajya Sabha member Manoj Jha wrote to the Election Commission registering the party’s serious objections over the amendments in the conduct of election rules by introducing the postal ballot system of voting for the people above 65 years of age without consultations.
In his letter to the ECI, Jha had said, “It has come to our notice that additional rules have been introduced in the conduct of Election Rules, 1961 unilaterally, without following due process of consultation with the political parties. As a political party with the largest footprint in Bihar assembly, we wish to place our strong objection on the matter in which such hurried changes have been carried out and merely announced in the meeting which we were not invited.”
Talking to TOI over the phone, Jha said on Thursday that the RJD was very happy over the EC's decision. "The EC should always keep in mind that any decision should be taken only after consultations with the political parties," he added.
The elections are due for October November this year. However, opposition parties, including RJD, have demanded to postpone the election in the wake of a surge in the Covid19 positive cases. The RJD has also got support from Lok Janshakti Party chief Chirag Paswan on the issue.