The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has issued a set of guidelines for the Rajarajeshwarinagar bypolls, scheduled to be held on November 3, in the light of COVID-19.
Voters will be provided with disposable hand gloves for signing the register and casting their vote on the EVM, after the finger is inked. Polling agents will also issue face masks to to those who come without one. Voters need to lower their masks for identification. Polling authorities will earmark places on a queue for 15-20 persons to ensure physical distance of 6 feet. There will be three separate queues for males, females, and persons with disability and senior citizens.
Meanwhile, thermal scanners and hand sanitisers will be used at entry/exit points of the polling station and at all tables within the booth. Paramedical staff or ASHAs will be deployed to check the temperature of electors.
If the temperature of a voter is higher than the set norms of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for two readings, they will separated from the queue and issued a token. They will have to come back in the last hour of polling, when COVID-19 patients and suspected patients will be facilitated to cast their vote, under strict COVID-19 preventive measures. Tokens will be issued by a helpdesk on first-come-first-serve basis, so that voters need not wait in queues in the last hour of polling. A separate set of guidelines will be issued for voters residing in containment zone, BBMP commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad said.
