‘Not issued postal ballots’: Kerala govt employees seek voting chance before counting day

Kochi: A petition has been filed before high court by certain govt employees assigned to election duty, alleging that they were not issued postal ballot papers and seeking a direction to the Election Commission (EC) to permit them to vote by postal ballot before the counting day on May 4.A bench of Justice Harisankar V Menon on Friday sought instructions from EC in the petition filed by Muhammed Sinan V P of Vadakara and others and adjourned the matter to April 21. The petitioners claimed that, although they are eligible voters in the Kuttiady assembly constituency, they were assigned official duties at polling stations outside their respective constituencies and were not provided with postal ballot papers, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to exercise their franchise.The Chief Election Commissioner had issued standard operating procedures and subsequent instructions to ensure the timely distribution of postal ballots through designated election facilitation centres between April 1 and April 8. However, the petitioners contended that, in practice, ballot papers were not made available at several facilitation centres, resulting in their inability to exercise their franchise.Earlier, in a separate petition filed by the Kerala NGO Union, the HC had directed EC to ensure the availability of postal ballots to voters on election duty. Pursuant to this, further administrative directions were issued to facilitate voting before 5pm on April 8. However, the petitioners alleged that, despite such judicial intervention, they were still not provided with ballot papers, indicating a complete failure in implementation.Accordingly, the petitioners have sought an inquiry into the administrative and logistical lapses that led to the non-issuance of postal ballot papers to eligible voters on election duty, and to fix responsibility for the same. They have also sought a direction to EC to formulate and implement a robust mechanism to ensure that officers on election duty are not deprived of their right to vote in future elections due to administrative or logistical failures.