Greater Hyderabad poll has lesser staff

Hyderabad: The State Election Commission is gearing up to issue notification for the GHMC election either on Tuesday or Wednesday and proposes to see that the process ends by first week of December. The political parties particularly, the ruling TRS and the opposition BJP, have taken this election as a prestigious one and are busy working out poll strategies.

Amidst this scenario the SEC is facing the problem of shortage of polling staff as many government employees working in the districts are not willing to attend the poll duties due to the fear of Covid-19. With reports that the cases have been rising in Delhi and with caution from experts that there could be a second wave, the government employees from districts are reluctant to attend the GHMC election duties. The employees in districts fear that they may get affected by the coronavirus if they come to Hyderabad which has seen the highest number of positive cases in the state during the pandemic.

The state government has sent letters to thousands of government employees working in the Education and Panchayat Raj departments in the districts asking them to attend the poll duties on the polling day.

The government had recently appointed Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) and Returning Officers from among the GHMC staff. Around 30,000 staff working with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and other government wings in the corporation's limits have been asked to give their consent for the discharge of their duties during the elections. Efforts are on to mobilise another 20,000 staff from the districts. In the 2016 elections, more than 5,000 district employees attended the duties on the polling day.

Officials said that this time ballot papers are being used for voting in the place of EVMs (electronic voting machines) and it requires huge polling staff on the polling day. The management of ballot papers is a tough job in the polling booths. "Manual work will be more in the paper ballot system," a senior official said. A training camp is also being organised for all polling staff. A high-level meeting between SEC and government officials is expected to take place soon after the announcement of poll schedule to work out a fool-proof arrangement regarding safety of the polling staff.