NT NETWORK
PANAJI
The election conducted in the capital city witnessed a voter passing away while going to perform his electoral duty even as the Election Commission dedicated a special polling station to the first-time voters, and gave away souvenirs to handful of them.
The capital city, which posted quite high 60.13 voting percentage, had its polling station number 27 in the Goa College of Arts decorated with pink balloons and pink cloths, and the polling staff wearing pink dress as a part of the women empowerment initiative of the state Chief Electoral Office. The presiding officer at this polling station, which had marked 970 voters for casting their votes, informed that five pink teddy bears were given to the first-time female voters. She also added that eight first-time male voters were given writing pens.Most of the voters in the Panaji constituency arrived at the polling stations in small groups, and these polling stations seldom saw long queues. Furthermore, the city voting also followed the state trend of registering 15 per cent voting after two hours from starting of the polling exercise, 34 per cent after four hours, and crossing 50 per cent mark after six hours.
Incidentally, the state Chief Electoral Office could not provide wheelchairs for the senior citizen voters in all polling stations. However, some of the polling stations, including the one at the Goa College of Home Science had this facility.
There were also instances in some of the polling stations, wherein workers of a political party warned the voters outside some polling stations that their votes are no longer secret due to the VVPAT (Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail) method of providing feedback to voters.
The St Cruz constituency witnessed peaceful voting excluding a few incidents of verbal clash. Even in sensitive areas like Chimbel and Indira Nagar, the voting was peaceful. At Cujira polling booth number 29, the CISF personnel were seen not allowing the voters to carry their mobile phones inside the booth.
Taleigao constituency broke the previous polling record to witness 81.11 per cent turnout, bettering the previous mark of 79.56 per cent in the 2012 assembly polls.
No untoward incident was reported in the constituency. However, some voters returned without voting due to a technical snag reported in the voter-verified paper audit trail machines at polling station number 37 in Vodlem bhatt and at polling station number 14 at BSNL telephone exchange near Goa University. Voting had to be halted at 9 am for almost two hours.
Cumbharjua also witnessed a good response with young voters as well as senior citizens coming out in large numbers since morning to exercise their franchise. Voting was overall peaceful in the constituency. The voting process was carried out peacefully in Aldona constituency with voters turning out in large numbers at the polling booths.
The election process in Porvorim and in the twin tourism constituencies of Saligao and Calangute in Bardez taluka was peaceful and the voter turnout better than what it was in 2012. Porvorim was declared a sensitive constituency in the wake of complaints and counter complaints of assaults and attacks by the candidates in the run-up to the polling date during the campaigning phase.
Polling stations received a warm response from the voters as polling commenced and the pace remained steady through the day as the voting percentage crossed the mark of 80 per cent at the close of the polling process. However, in Porvorim constituency, the voting process was interrupted due to technical faults in the VVPAT machines, being used for the first time in the state. Problems were encountered at booth numbers 10, 20 and 28.
Except for instances of interruptions and delays due to technical problems for a few minutes at two polling stations in Nerul in Saligao constituency, the voters were happy with the arrangement. Porvorim constituency had 38 polling booths, while in Saligao there were 39 and in Calangute 34 polling booths were set up for the polling process.