Enforcing COVID-19 norms along the district’s coastal belt proved to be tall order as polling officials struggled to streamline crowds that arrived to cast their votes on Tuesday. The paucity of space in many polling booths prompted many to cite impracticalities in implementing the protocol.
Nevertheless, most voters turned up with masks and frequently sanitised their hands as the electorate warmed up to the post-pandemic new normal of elections. Effective steps were also adopted by the police to prevent crowding outside polling stations.
Voters jostled against each other as they made a beeline for the polling booths in various places including Murukkumpuzha, Puthenthope, Anjuthengu, Kochuveli and Vettucaud. The police also had to resort to forceful measures to disperse a crowd that had congregated outside a polling station in St. Joseph’s Lower Primary School, Anjuthengu.
A poll officer, who oversaw the proceedings in a booth in Vettucaud, claimed difficulties in enforcing social distancing norms. “We have numerous polling booths that have been set up in panchayat-run public libraries, government offices and school that lack adequate space. To prevent long queues from blocking roads, we had to instruct voters to stand close to those ahead of them,” he said.
The officials who were deputed for election duty in Pallithura Higher Secondary School turned back some voters who arrived to vote without their masks. Thumba Assistant Sub-Inspector Saju Kumar said they were directed to return with masks. Some people volunteered to distribute masks for the benefit of such people.
In certain places, political parties joined hands to distribute hand sanitisers and arrange other facilities to meet the COVID-19 precautionary requirements in polling stations.
Freemus Francis, an Independent candidate who contested from the seventh ward (Valiyapally) in the Anjuthengu grama panchayat, said the electoral rivals chipped in to arrange a portable water tank at the polling station in Matsya Bhavan in Anjuthengu to enable voters to wash their hands before casting their votes.
