The Election Commission on Monday said polling personnel deployed in five states going to polls next month can vote at designated facilitation centres only and cannot keep ballot papers with them for long.
Earlier, the poll panel had observed that voters on election duty who are provided postal ballots take their postal ballots with them since they have time to cast the postal ballot till 8 AM of the counting day and do not cast their votes at voter facilitation centres, official sources said.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar informed the media that the rules were tweaked with an aim to check voters using postal ballots as they are becoming a force and an interest group.
“We will not call it misuse of postal ballot. But if government servants using postal ballot facility start bargaining — they have their interests — that is not legitimate,” he said at a press conference to announce the schedule for the Assembly polls in five states.
The rules were changed by the government on the recommendation of the Election Commission in order to check the potential misuse of the postal ballot facility extended to voters on poll duty, the sources said.
