GUWAHATI, Nov 25 - The Assam State Election Commission has adopted the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India just before the Bihar Assembly elections for maintaining COVID-19 protocols while holding the elections.
The Commission had issued guidelines on the issue to prevent spread of the disease during the poll process and the same will be implemented during the BTC polls.
The guidelines said that every person involved in the poll process should wear face masks and thermal scanning of all such persons should be carried out. All persons involved in the poll process should be provided with sanitizers and water and soap should be made available in all the halls used. As far as possible, large halls should be identified and used to ensure social distancing norms and adequate number of vehicles should be mobilized so that poll personnel can be transported by using social distancing.
The guidelines said that nodal health officers should be appointed for every district to monitor the COVID-19 situation, while, training of poll officials should be decentralized as far as possible and online training should be imparted whenever possible. Reserve polling officials should be kept for replacing any officer showing symptoms of COVID-19.
The Commission said the polling stations should be sanitized a day before the polling and thermal scanning of all the polling personnel and voters should be carried out. If the temperature of any voter is found to be above the prescribed norms of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the person concerned should be asked to come at the last hour of polling.
Markers should be used for specifying areas to ensure maintenance of social distancing in the queues of voters. At least six feet distance should be maintained between voters. There should be three queues for males, females and senior citizens.
The guidelines said that extra face masks should be kept in the polling stations to be given to voters who are not carrying masks. If any polling or counting agent shows temperature above the prescribed norms, reliever should be allowed.
The Commission also issued a series of guidelines for campaigning but apparently those were not strictly followed by any political party as large gatherings of people were seen in the meetings and most people were not wearing face masks.
