Monday, May 16, 2011

Micro Observer Duty:


2nd May 2011; a Monday to be accurate. It’s usually so irritating to wake up early on Mondays after a lazy Sunday. But this Monday was different, and so was the preceding Sunday. That’s because I had to go for my election duty and so the Sunday was busy mostly gathering and packing stuffs of utility.

I kept lying on the bed till 10 and then got up to get finally ready since the car was asked to pick us up at 12:00 hrs. At precisely quarter to 12:00 hrs I left my quarter for the officers club where the vehicle was asked to come. Eight friends including me were to start off together from our place to Contai. After we all assembled, we kept waiting for another half an hour or so till the vehicle finally arrived at 12:30 hrs. With irritation in heart and prayers in mind, we set off on our journey. The roads were known yet destination unknown so far.

At around 14:30 hrs we arrived at our designated assembly place i.e. P. K. College Contai. There were so many other people over there that we could hardly make out where to go ourselves. Following signboards we separated to our respective meeting points from where we were supposed to be sent to our assigned locations. We first had to submit our i.cards for lamination. Don’t know why’s that for considering it’s going to be used for just a day. Still, rules are rules. After, say 2 hours or more of waiting, there entered a messenger with laminated i.cards and asked us to go to the bus stand to take buses to our respective regional offices. The list of our assigned offices was displayed on some notice board, which, needless to say, required more of our endeavor to check while crossing oceans of other interested officers on similar duty.

Then, finally at evening we walked to the bus stand to witness yet another confused scenario. The transport in charge their, knew nothing whatsoever about which bus will go where. Moreover, confusion remained about where exactly were we posted, when different people started asserting different statements. It took almost 2 – 2 ½ hours there to finally ascertain our postings from the block development officer and finally get on the right bus. We reached our designated centre in few minutes after that. This, they called their regional office. Here, we were given names of our respective sector officers who’ll escort us to the sector office. We were all given different sector officers to go with.

It was pouring heavily outside and so we waited inside the regional office for the sector officer. My sector officer came at last. He took me with him and in a maruti omni along with 3 other micro observers from other places. We were taken to a most remote location I’ve ever seen in my life. It was a so called secondary school with not even a drinking water facility. Mosquitoes abandoned the place and flies and grasshoppers were plenty. It was already 23 hrs so we decided to retire to sleep. But where do we sleep. There were only narrow benches in a class room, nothing else at all. Finally we decided to join benches and sleep on them. Mosquitoes were taken care of repellant lotion that I was carrying with me. About grasshoppers, we left them to chance. Let’s see what happens.

Next morning, we had to wake up at 04:00 hrs. On freshening up beside a pond nearby, we were picked up again by our plump sector officer. He then dropped us to our respective polling stations at exactly 05:30 hrs. He dropped me in a primary school. The school was only to be called so. There were hardly 2 5x5 sq m rooms. It had corrugated tin roofs on bamboo framework, bamboo bathrooms with tin plates as doors. Electricity hasn’t reached this part of the remote world. Drinking water was no where to be found except for a hand pump which oozed saline water only. From inside this so called school was emitting some hurricane lamp light. Inside the room was sitting 4 people. Sector officer introduced them to me.  The short mustached man was the presiding officer, the tall bald man was polling officer 1, and the others were polling officer 2 and 3. Outside were four gun men with automatic rifles. They were expected to ensure security of the polling booth.

Thereafter I was left with them for the rest of the day. Polling agents representing different polling parties arrived at 6:00 hrs. In front of them, mock poll was carried out first for checking the authenticity of the ballot machine. Then at 07:00 hrs, actual poll began. It’s hard to believe how oldest of the old citizens show up with such enthusiasm and in such high numbers. Presiding officer had tough time dealing with the crowd flow and polling agent 2 was a jerk, didn’t know a bit of the job he was assigned. It was a nightmare dealing with such high number of people arriving. I was relaxed considering I was only to observe and not execute. Hourly I was to compare total nos. of votes so far. This continued till 12:30 hrs. Then I went for lunch. The lunch consisted of plain rice, salt less lentils and a very poorly prepared fish. But amidst such hunger I ate these food hungrily since I had no rice since last 1 ½ days. The hunger was literally killing me. After lunch, the presiding officer and polling officers took turns to have their lunch too while others still taking care of the poll. After that, the crowd rush was much less. People kept coming in ones and twos till almost 15:30 hrs. After that, till 17:00 hrs, no one showed up and finally, in presence of polling agents and me, the poll was officially closed. Then, I was instructed to follow all formalities till the end. The polling officers were loose indeed. They kept filling forms and submission documents for almost another 2 hrs. The polling agents had all left. It was dark around and the officers just finished their job. I too had finished filling my documents long ago. But even after 19:00 hrs, no escort van showed up. We started walking along pitch black darkness with torches in hand and walking along meandering soil roads amidst rice farms. Finally, after walking almost 2 kms, we reached a tea stall where we saw the escort van of election commission arriving.

We got on to the van with enthusiasm which finally took us to a bus stop. We were asked to get down the van and board the bus. We did accordingly and then came to know that we’ve to wait for three other polling groups to board the bus before we could move back to main centre. So we’d to wait another 1 hr until finally the bus set off for its destination. It took almost half an hour till we finally reached contai main bus stand. There we came to know that bus wont go any ahead since there’s traffic rush ahead. So we had to walk another 20 mins among rushing crowds till we finally reached our initial assembly point i.e. P. K. College.

There I found a huge crowd waiting to submit their ballot machines. Luckily separate booth was maintained for submission of micro observer report. I submitted my report after duly sealing the envelop with sealing wax. Then I communicated with my remaining seven friends from the group to assemble there. They also took their time to come and meet up. Finally we were together again. Then we decided to take dinner in a nearby hotel and this followed by our final departure homeward.
It took around another 2 hrs to reach home at around midnight. We bid ourselves farewell and finally got into my quarter only to sit down and relax. Then I freshened up to retire on bed. Next day has been declared holiday for us which definitely is good news. Sleeping and closing my eyes I began to reflect all that had happened in past few days. Considering political turmoil in Bengal, this duty was indeed a near miss but at the end of the day I’m safe though tired. This experience one can never forget in a lifetime. An achievement worth remembering. An experience worth sharing. I don’t know when I felt asleep.


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