Team Herald
VASCO: Mormugao civic polls on Friday held following COVID-19 protocol in a disciplined manner. Mormugao municipal elections recorded 65.04 per cent of polling throughout the day.
Mormugao municipal area has 68089 eligible voters of which 34602 are male and 33487 are female voters. On polling day, total 44282 votes polled in which 22889 were male and 21393 were female. The lowest number of voters’ turnout was observed in ward 18 which recorded 924 votes (42.64 per cent). The highest number of footfall was in ward 2 which recorded 1651 votes (80.73 percent).
On all 77 polling booths police personnel were present since morning and flying squad was also seen moving around. There was no crowd and people from Mormugao municipal area, on almost all booths, were surprisingly seen strictly following COVID protocols and safety norms seriously.
Since morning 8am to 10 am, 13.77 per cent of voting took place. From 11 am to 12 pm 29.94 per cent, which means from 8 am to 12 pm total 20,386 voters got inked. From 12 pm to 2 pm 45.36 per cent voting was recorded. From 2 pm to 4 pm 60.67 perccent and total percentage of voting came to 65.04 in Mormugao municipal area.
It was learnt from the locals that people who were willing to cast their votes but didn’t turn up due to the COVID scare. Most of the people avoided coming out considering the spike in the COVID cases.
Later from 4 to 5 pm in Vasco municipal area, several COVID positive voters came specially to exercise their voting rights. The authorities had made preparations well in advance and the moment these voters reached at the booths, they were provided with PPE kits, social distancing, hand sanitization and then they were allowed to cast their votes.
Later when asked some voters who were COVID positive, on the condition of anonymity, said that they came specially to exercise their right to vote because it is very important as even one vote could make a change and play a decisive role in civic polls.
