Bihar Assembly Elections 2025 | Anganwadi workers to help verify identity of 'ghoongat', burqa-clad voters at booths: CEC

New Delhi: ‘Anganwadi Sevikas’ will be deployed in every polling station in Bihar during Assembly election to ascertain the identity of women voters who go to vote wearing ‘ghoongat’ (veil) and burqa.

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said 90,712 ‘anganwadi sevikas’ will be deployed in as many polling stations and they will do identity checks of women on need basis.

Kumar was responding to a question about how the EC would identify women voters who come to vote wearing  ‘ghoongat’ (veil) and burqa. There were earlier controversies about political activists objecting to women wearing veils coming to vote, citing the difficulty in identifying them.

Kumar said clear instructions have been formulated on how to ascertain the identity of such people.

On the new initiatives, Kumar said there will be mandatory VVPAT count for mismatches. He said there will be VVPAT slip counting in each and every case of mismatch between Form 17C and EVM data and wherever mock poll data was not erased.

Another initiative unveiled by the EC is the option for voters to reach out to their Booth Level Officers by booking a call through ECINet, an EC App.

For the first time, he said, there will be one General Observer for each constituency. There will be 38 Police Observers and 67 Expenditure Observers, he added.