HYDERABAD: Chaotic conditions prevailed in session court Hyderabad as polling personnel including presiding officers, especially women, had to bear with mismanagement on the part of returning officers and local administration.
“For hours we have been looking for our presiding officer(s) but she is not available… there are no seating arrangements and even drinking water is not available in this scorching heat,” complains an exhausted assistant presiding officer, who is to perform her duty on one of the polling stations of NA-220 (Hyderabad city) on May 11.
A large number of presiding officers, assistant presiding officers (both male and female) and police were present in the sessions court premises to get hold of polling material including ballot papers, boxes etc to leave for their polling stations.
“All vehicles including buses and vans had been parked at the entrance of the court whereas polling material is lying in front of offices of the returning officer. Now how would women take this material to buses parked at a considerable distance,” says a policeman while talking to Dawn.com.
He was taking care of transportation and police escort for polling personnel.
“Police had called for these vehicles so that women don’t have to bear with the trouble of carrying polling material to vehicles,” he says.
The women, who are mostly teachers or from the health department, were sitting on stairs of the sessions court in absence of chairs.
Men were seen standing under the tree to avoid the heat. Lack of coordination between police and revenue officials was too apparent. Non-availability of presiding officers made matters worse for the polling staff.
Hyderabad district has three National Assembly i.e. NA-219, NA-220 and 221 and six provincial assembly seats PS-45, PS-46, PS-47, PS-48, PS-49 and PS-50. Some high profile contests are likely to be held on these seats. The Poll campaign finished last night.
NA-219 Hyderabad-I (Old Hyderabad-II) has 262 polling stations with 302,211 registered voters including 168,501 male and 133,710 female.
Likewise, 267 polling stations are set up in NA-220 Hyderabad-II (Old Hyderabad-III) where 274,281 are registered voters including 156,184 male and 118,097 female.
For NA-221 Hyderabad-cum-Matiari (Old Hyderabad-IV) 204 polling stations are established. 269,066 are registered voters including 143,883 male and 125,183 female.
PS-45 Hyderabad-1 has 136 polling stations with 138,513 voters, PS-46 Hyderabad-II has 131 polling stations with 135,768 voters; PS-47 Hyderabad-III has 119 polling stations with 169,793 voters; PS-48 Hyderabad-IV has 134 polling stations and 157,905 voters, PS-49 Hyderabad-V has 128 polling stations and 144,306 voters and PS-50 Hyderabad-VI (Old Hyderabad-VIII) has 113 polling stations with 132,660 voters.
The main Miran Mohammad Shah road remained blocked with barbed wires, from Old Campus to the Hyderabad Press Club side, by local administrations during the despatch of polling material. Army troops escorted polling material and staff to polling stations.
The district administration has impounded coaster buses and hi-ace vans for this purpose. Three different locations were chosen for handing over polling material.
For NA-219 Latifabad, polling personnel were called in the morning in Public School, while for NA-220 it was the session court where the staff gathered. For NA-221 the polling staff reported to the returning officer in Government Zubeda Girls College.
“We don’t have a peon and we are to carry this material to the bus which is very difficult for us”, says an aged assistant presiding officer.
“Can you help me please in this regard,” a woman presiding officer asked a policeman who helped her.
Staff had arrived in the morning to avoid inconvenience. But even then they had to go through a cumbersome procedure of receiving ballot papers and transparent ballot boxes.
Some of the polling personnel claimed that they had been called at the eleventh hour for duty and didn’t even recieve training on how to ensure casting of votes.
“I am a lecturer. I am called this morning to perform duty of presiding officer for a female polling station because the woman, who was to perform her duty didn’t turn up as she had her name removed from the list,” says a presiding officer.
Some police officials present in the court’s premises blamed revenue officials for not having contact with them, thus the chaos.
“Had the buses not been called inside it would have caused serious trouble to police and polling personnel,” said a police official.
Tense situation
Police have marked two of six provincial constituencies of Hyderabad district as very tense in terms of security.
One of them is PS-50 of Tandojam where Sharjeel Memon, PPP’s deputy central information secretary, is contesting against PPP’s old diehard, Khawand Bux Jahejo.
“Both are tense constituencies for us as far as May 11 is concerned,” says a police official. Likewise, he adds, PS-49 of Latifabad is also a sensitive constituency keeping in mind a possible armed clash.
“It [armed clash] can’t be ruled there,” he says.
PS-47 is the constituency of Qasimabad where Sindhi nationalist leader Ayaz Latif Palijo from Qaumi Awami Tehrik is contesting against young Jam Khan Shoro of PPP.
Shoros have considerable influence in the area of this constituency and are taking the contest very seriously.
Palijo is contesting in an election for the first time.
SSP Hyderabad Saqib Ismail Memon says that 93 polling stations are highly sensitive and 202 sensitive out of a total number of 793 polling stations of the district.
According to him, 3800 policemen would be on election duty in addition to auxiliary forces being provided to the police.
“Police will be deployed at polling stations,” SSP says.
He adds that Army and Rangers are on board with security arrangements on May 11 but they won’t be directly looking after security duties.