Team Herald
PANJIM: There will be 40 women polling stations across the State, which will be staffed by women and will sport a ‘pink coloured theme’ wherein the polling officers, security guards will wear pink outfits. Efforts are on to encourage voters to wear pink while visiting the station to cast their votes.
In a unique initiative, the Chief Electoral Office has also decided to gift a ‘pink teddy bear’ to first time girl voters visiting the station, thus thanking them for their valuable vote.
“The effort is to empower the women community,” Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) IAS Kunal told Herald.
The CEO has decided to set up 40 polling stations, one each in every constituency. The entire station will be managed entirely by women including the security guards who will also be women. “We have plans to decorate the entire station in pink with added attraction of pink balloons and pink flowers,” Kunal said.
“The polling officers on duty will be made to wear pink. We are also making efforts to appeal to the voters to wear pink while visiting the station to cast their vote,” he stated. The CEO’s initiative has been highly applauded by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The State has around 5,62,930 female voters, which is almost 20,000 more than the male voters.
Also, the State will have one polling station for the disabled called ‘Divyang’ polling station where the officers on duty would be disabled persons. There are over 2,000 disabled voters identified by CEO so far.
