Finally, election officials get to enjoy post-poll lull

Like the politicians in the fray and their supporters, the Delhi electoral office personnel have also got a breather on Sunday, the day after the city saw the highest turnout in Assembly polls.

Officials said that they have overcome the biggest challenge of conducting free and fair elections on Saturday, and just a minor hurdle of counting of votes is left after which they can get fully relaxed.

“Yes we have also got a break today,” a senior official with Delhi electoral office told Deccan Herald.

Asked if their work is almost over now, the official said, “The voting went on till 8 pm yesterday. We are still in the process of tabulating and compiling the data.”

“Though it’s a lean day for many of us but we still have to come to office on a weekend,” he added.

Some of the staff said that they have even planned to go on a vacation. “I have applied for leave to go on a vacation soon after the results for the Assembly elections are out,” said a woman employee posted with the Delhi electoral office in Kashmere Gate.

Some still busy

A few officials are busy in processing the postal ballots. “The postal ballots can be received by the Delhi electoral office till 8 am on Tuesday. So yes we are still collating the data on the pastal ballots,” the official added.

So far 43,235 postal ballots have been received by the election office in comparison to 41,095 postal ballots during the 2013 Assembly elections, according to the figures compiled by the Delhi electoral office.

The election duty staff engaged for the polling day are basking in success. “We could do our job well only with the help of our supervisors,” said a election duty personnel.

“But I think we can only relax once the counting is over. Conducting elections take a lot of planning and the greatest reward for us is that the whole exercise gets over without a hitch,” he added.

Others said that for people the counting day is important because the city will get a chief minister, but for these officials it is a double bonanza. “We will be glad not only because the city will get a chief minister, but also because elections will get over peacefully,” another official said.

Nearly 95,000 government employees have been deployed on election duty. The deployment has been for polling duties, reception of polled electronic voting machines, counting and sector officers.

It also included expenditure monitoring and model code of conduct enforcement teams such as flying squads, static surveillance teams and micro observers at polling stations as well as the staff for various cells at district levels.