Humanoid is cynosure of all eyes in Thrikkakara

KOCHI: Voters who arrived at the Thrikkakara community hall polling booth in Ernakulam on Thursday morning were in for a surprise when a ‘smiling’, wide-eyed robot welcomed them at the entrance. ‘Sayabot’, the humanoid developed by Asimov Robotics, offered sanitiser to the voters and advised them to wear masks properly while entering the booth.

She also checked their body temperature and advised those with high temperature to contact the polling officer and avail the facility to cast vote separately.

“The response from voters has been amazing. We programmed the robot in two days and the results have been encouraging. The robot checks temperature and interacts with the voter for around a minute. This is the first time a robot is being used at a polling station. It is a major achievement,” said T Jayakrishnan, the CEO of Asimov Robotics.

The robot can, in her perky voice, remind voters of the need to adhere to social distancing norms if she sees people crowding in front of the booth.

Booth for 17 voters sees only 11 turning up
Kochi: While polling booths across the state witnessed serpentine queues with a high voter turnout, the officials at a booth in Puthencruz panchayat were left waiting for voters. With 17 voters, polling station number 160 at the Salvation Army Community Hall, Varikkoli, had the least number of voters in Ernakulam district.

But only 11 people turned up to exercise their franchise this time. The polling booth is located around 100 metres off the busy Kochi-Dhanushkodi national highway and the area is thickly populated, but the booth has only a small number of voters as it is dedicated to the hospital set up by Salvation Army under Leprosy Eradication Programme. 

Brisk polling witnessed in coastal hamlets
The eight coastal villages in Ernakulam saw huge voter turnout with the average polling percentage crossing 70 per cent in all of them. There are a total of 143 wards in these major coastal areas with 1.8 lakh voters. The highest poll per cent was recorded at Kuzhuppalli grama panchayat with 81.12 per cent casting their votes. The lowest was at Elamkunnappuzha at 71.46 per cent. The highest number of voters among the coastal villages was at Elamkunnapuzha panchayat with 37,685 in 23 wards.