Polling officials from each group were provided with bottles of Carbolic acid at the time of their departure from the DCRC centres in East Burdwan on Friday as the district already has recorded 173 deaths in a year due to snake bite.
Snakes have the ability to sense the presence of Carbolic acid even from a distance and divert their routes. East Burdwan, according to forest officials, has of late seen an increase in the number of venomous snakes especially in the rural areas.
The flagging off, however, was delayed in Ausgram and Burdwan-1 blocks after several batches of polling personnel on reaching the DCRC declined to assume charge on the plea that the money provided by the Election Commission was not debited to their respective bank accounts. After Tirthankar Biswas, SDM, Burdwan (Sudder) intervened, the polling officials agreed to move after three hours on the promise that they would be reimbursed the fund in cash on return after polling.
East Burdwan, in its 23 blocks accommodated 3,933 polling stations in 2,697 premises where 35.66 lakh voters are expected to exercise their franchise, of them, 17.57 lakh are female and 60 third gender voters. Jamalpur block has the highest 2.24 Lakh number of voters and Ketugram-II – the lowest 98.14 Thousand voters. District Magistrate of East Burdwan, Priyanka Singla said: “We’ve also opened a 24X7 control room to conduct supervision of polling smoothly.”
Incidentally, polling for one seat, Monteswar Panchayat Samiti at Majhergram, in East Burdwan, has been postponed after the CPI-M candidate Bikash Santra died due to snake bite on 1 July.