April 24, 2019
If there is a defining image of the Election Commission of India
(ECI)’s Accessible Election campaign, it would be this.
The video and images, shared by Ali on social media, have gone viral, making
a mockery of the ECI’s claim to ‘Leave No Voter Behind’.
Ali says that he went to the polling booth in Gauhati where he was
registered, Booth Number 156, in the early hours to find that the station was
set up on the first floor of a building, which is a primary school. He waited
outside for assistance, but got none.
There were no facilities for voters with disabilities at the booth. There
were three polling booths in the same place and the one on the ground floor
was accessible but my station was on the first floor. There was none who
was sensitised on disability or how to assist a person with disabilities. I
sat under the sun for hours and no one from the polling booth came forward
to help until I notified the Chief Electoral Officer Assam and the media. –
Arman Ali, Executive Director, National Centre for Promotion of
Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP)
Ali says that the booth level officers manning the station offered no
assistance of any kind. It was only after the CEO Assam’s intervention that
they asked him to return in the evening to cast his vote.
When he returned, he was lifted to the first floor by a few people so he
could cast his vote. A frustrated Ali took to Twitter to share his experience
– “So finally this is how I was able to cast my vote at 4:55 pm. It took
2 visits. I had to wait for 2 hrs in the sun. what sham in the name the name
of accessible #2019Elections Devine indeed!”
Ali’s is not an isolated experience. There have been many instances of
people with disabilities across many polling stations being physically lifted
onto upper floors of buildings to cast their votes. Given the entire effort
put into setting up a PwD App for the express purpose of mapping disabled
voters so their needs can be catered to, one wonders what went wrong.
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/22061
