Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 6

The first vote of the country for the 2019 General Election has been cast by service voters posted in Arunachal Pradesh. A remote Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) unit located in the eastern tip of the north-eastern state started the service voting through secret postal ballot at Lohitpur, Arunachal Pradesh, more than 2,600 km away from New Delhi.

The first vote was cast by ITBP Deputy Inspector General Sudhakar Natarajan, the head of the force’s Animal Training School (ATS).

Votes through postal ballots have been cast from Lohitpur for many constituencies in India. Ballot papers have been dispatched to Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Bengaluru, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, UP and several other states.

Apart from the ATS, 30 personnel from other ITBP units deployed in the state also cast their votes through postal ballot. Nearly 5,000 personnel from the security forces have voted from other parts of the country, out of which close to 1,000 were from the ITBP alone, a senior officer said.

This year, the Election Commission has taken several steps to add more and more service voters in the process. Awareness campaigns through electronic, social, print and other media were given due attention since last year. There are about 30 lakh defence, paramilitary and other government employees registered as service voters. In many cases they are residing with families at their duty stations and will cast their vote through service voter facility.

Postal ballot is one of the options available to government employees posted away from their home constituencies. They can also get themselves registered as general voters at their place of posting.

Some ex-servicemen associations have been taking up the issue of registering defence personnel as voters at their place of posting for which constitutional and statutory provisions exist. They have been claiming that these provisions are not implemented by the authorities concerned due to which many defence personnel are unable to exercise their right to franchise.

Kicking it off

• First vote was cast by ITBP DIG General Sudhakar Natarajan at Lohitpur in Arunachal
• Nearly 5,000 security personnel have cast their vote in various parts of the country
• About 30 lakh security and other government employees are registered as service voters and can vote through postal ballot