Female officials getting ready a polling booth in Hyderabad, on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections, on Sunday.
The concept ‘equality with a difference’ has traveled far and wide and governments are slowly beginning to respond to women friendly policies by giving certain concessions based on gender roles. However, general elections is one such area where this gender blindness becomes most pronounced on the part of governments.
There were several women employees who had a torrid time while being deployed for election duties during the recently concluded Parliamentary polls because of their authorities’ lack of sensitivity towards females. Nonetheless, it was not about whether or not women receive appropriate treatment at polling stations; it was rather all about what took place at Distribution Reception Centres (DRC) which serve as material receiving points for elections.
How savage they were while abandoning these female officers along roads after midnight without the least consideration for their safety!
“By Tuesday 1:30 am I returned home. The bus left me at L.B Nagar crossroads from where my house is approximately 3 kilometres away. As a single woman with no male family member available to pick me up, I panicked,” narrated Poojitha, a state government employee appointed presiding officer in Vikarabad.
She had to request her close relative living nearby to bring her back home and even though she believes that this time things were better than before 2023 Assembly Elections when there was no drop facility whatsoever but still she managed with much hustle hiring a cab together with her male colleague.
While buses were provided by the government from DRC centres to different parts of the town, late night drop related safety issues did not get enough attention.
“We had waited almost for two hours after closing time for voting so that the vehicle could carry us to DRC centre where they took sufficient time before handing over the materials and issuing us an attendance certificate,” shared Jhansi, a teacher employed in Uppal. She drove home at midnight, on her two-wheeler.
For those women posted away from the city, the situation was even worse. Besides the time taken in depositing all those materials, they were further exasperated because they had to wait for buses.
“Only one bus was allocated per route. Once a group of staff has left the same direction, we would wait until it came back again before we could also pass that direction. Even if there were buses available, drivers never started off without filling them up in any which way with passengers such as myself,” said Vijayalakshmi (name changed), another employee.
Nothing like what was promised existed at polling stations. The women officers moan that toilets hardly existed. “The school washrooms were very dirty since the good toilets used by teachers remained locked. In the next-door community hall, we did bathe,” Vijayalakshmi explained.
“We didn’t have bathroom and just changed our cloths without taking bath,” Poojitha said.
