Team Herald
PANJIM: With 75.25 voters turning up to vote on Sunday for the Panjim Assembly by-polls, the fate of the six candidates was sealed. The polling was held peaceful without any untoward incident in the Capital.
North Goa District Election Officer, R Menaka said that out of the 22,482 registered voters in the constituency segment, 16918 voters cast their vote.
“The election process by and large was very peaceful without reports of any untoward incidents. Except for minor complaints of crowd gathering for which we informed the flying squad to disperse the crowds. No other incidents were reported”, she said.
Out of 10697 males voters 8119 cast their votes while out of 11785 females voters 8799 females cast their vote.
She further informed that the polling process in the 30 polling booths began at 6 am with mock polls being conducted during which no machines were reported to have malfunctioned.
“The actual polling began at 7 am and at 6 pm there were no queues at any of the polling booths and polling closed at 6 pm”, she added.
The DEO further informed that the highest polling was recorded at booth number 16 with 89.86 per cent voters turning up to cast their votes and the lowest was recorded at booth number 15 with 63.96 per cent voters exercising their franchise.
She said that in comparison to the 2017 by-election the voter turnout had increased as then 69.98 per cent votes had been polled. However, Sunday’s turnout is lower than the general elections to the Goa Legislative Assembly held in February 2017 in which 78.38 per cent voters had exercised their franchise.
Interestingly, compared to the Parliament elections, people with disabilities (PWDs) voters turned out in large numbers with 101 out of the 115 voters making it 87.82 per cent PWD voter turn out.
Meanwhile, the Capital city turned into a fortress with the presence of police personnel not just at polling stations but across the Panjim constituency in large numbers. However, with not much to do the personnel were seen either on mobile phones or chit chatting.
As per police information three companies of central paramilitary forces were deployed across the city. In addition Goa’s Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) and Goa Police personnel were also deployed.
However, as one of the voter pointed out, “Why do you need so much deployment of Force? It reflects badly on our Forces as most of them are almost throughout on their mobile phones or are engrossed in chatting amongst themselves.”
He pointed out that for every junction where a PCR has been stationed atleast 8 personnel were seen, “Who had no work and but were just there. They could have very well been in the police stations and rushed to the spot if needed.”
