Postal Ballots for Assam Sr. Citizen

The senior citizens of Assm who are 80 plus need not have to go to the polling stations to vote in Assam this time.

They may opt for postal ballot. All they have to apply online to the District Election Authority and get the postal ballot delivered by February 4 next.

This is for the first time such facility has been extended to the voters which are 80 plus. This will help these citizens to stay away from the polling stations and not expose to covid scare,

This was today announced today by Assam Chief Electoral Officer Nitin Khade, while addressing a press conference regarding the ensuing Assam Assembly Election.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Election Department, through an official release, also notified about various steps and initiatives taken to ensure a "COVID-safe" election. It reiterated that the need for maintaining COVID protocol, COVID appropriate behaviour and following Standard Operating Protocols (SOPs) is mandatory.

It has issued guidelines which was followed during the General Election to Legislative Assembly of Bihar. These guidelines shall be followed during the upcoming Assam polls as well.

Campaigning –

• Door to Door Campaign- Subject to any other restriction(s) including extant COVID-19 guidelines, a group of 5 (five) persons including candidates, excluding security personnel, if any, is allowed to do door to door campaigning.

• Road Shows – The convoy of vehicles should be broken after every 5 (five) vehicles instead of 10 vehicles (excluding the security vehicles, if any). The interval between two sets of convoys of vehicles should be half an hour instead of gap of 100 meters.

• As for election meetings, they may be conducted subject to adherence to extant COVID-19 guidelines. Anybody violating the same will be liable to proceeded against as per the provisions of Section 51 to 60 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, besides legal action under Section 188 of the IPC, and other legal provisions.

Publicity of Safety Measures –

Special outreach activities are being carried out to publicize the safety measures to be undertaken during elections. Contactless and digital mediums for all outreach activities i.e Television, Print, Social Media etc are being preferred.

Voter details –

There are a total of 23186362 general voters, out of which 11742661 are male, 11443259 are females, and 442 trangenders. 62134 constitute of service voters and 11 overseas voters.

As for PwD voters, there are a total of 132081, out of which 69261 are male, 62809 are females and 11 belong to the third gender.

There are a total of 290677 voters above the age of 80, out of which 136049 are male, 154627 females and 1 belonging to the third gender.

Polling stations –

According to an official statement, a total of 33,530 polling stations have been set up in the state of Assam, out of which 5325 are Auxiliary and 2125 are critical. Additionally, 338 of them are having vulnerable hamlets.

COVID Safety Materials & Vaccination –

COVID materials are in stock. Most of the districts have received and few stocks of COVID materials are in transit. Health department has communicated that all the COVID materials will be delivered in the districts by March 5, 2021

In case of vaccination plan, most of the districts have submitted the database to health department, which will be uploaded in the COWIN portal. The vaccination process in the districts in going on.

Earlier yesterday, the Election Commission Of India (ECI) announced that the 126-seat Assam Assembly Elections will be held in three phases