Congres to provide Rs5Lakh insurance cover to Kannur booth agents

Kannur: Since the democratic process of polling also entails booth capturing and attack on booth agents in sensitive and vulnerable constituencies, the Congress has decided to provide insurance coverage to all UDF booth agents in Kannur for the upcoming assembly elections.
"We have already held discussions with a major public sector insurance company and our plan is to provide an insurance coverage of Rs5 lakh each/agent, though it is an expensive affair," said district congress committee (DCC) president K Surendran.
Over the years, there have been numerous instances of booth capturing and attack against booth agents for reporting bogus voting, especially by the CPM. "Though it is for the officials to handle the menace, we have to take care of their morale and ensure the security of our workers. Thus this initiative was born," he said, adding that there were many booth agents who had to be hospitalized with serious injuries.
Though the number of cases have come down considerably after authorities started deploying central forces, and measures were taken to videotape and live-streaming the polling process, there were many complaints in the previous Lok Sabha election. The then UDF candidate K Sudhakaran had demanded repolling in 100-odd booths in Kannur constituency alone.
Even polling officials agreed there were many complaints, but in many cases booth agents refused to officially register their grievance, which is an indication of the fear factor that they might be targeted and even their houses might be attacked if they filed a complaint.
In some booths in the strongholds of some political parties, other parties are afraid to send any booth agent and it is the Congress which suffers the most.
Kannur district has one of the highest numbers of sensitive and vulnerable polling booths in Kerala.
District police chief P Hari Sankar said that 1,009 of the 1,629 polling booths in the district are sensitive and of this lot 740 are slotted as vulnerable. So high security would be in place in such booths with central armed reserve force being deployed to ensure peace.