Pink polling booths for Meghalaya in upcoming state polls

Pink polling booths will be set up in the upcoming assembly polls in Meghalaya, a top election official said on Saturday.

Pink polling booths, or completely female staff-managed booths, were first introduced in the Punjab and Goa assembly elections earlier this year.

"The pink booths will be managed by an all-women team, including presiding officers, polling officers, micro observers and security personnel," Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Achal Kumar Joti told journalists after reviewing preparations for the state elections, scheduled for February 2018.

The five-year term of the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly will expire on March 6.

Joti said 60 pink booths -- one each in all the 60 constituencies in the state -- would be set up.

"We decided to set up the women polling booths to empower women and increase their participation in the poll process," the CEC said.

Similar exercise was carried out in the just-concluded assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh as well, he added.

There are 3,082 polling booths in Meghalaya, and of the 17.68 lakh voters registered till September 27, the number of women voters is 8.93 lakh, which constitutes 50.52 per cent of the total electorate.

Joti, along with the two election commissioners, Om Prakash Rawat and Sunil Arora, was on a two-day visit to Meghalaya to review the poll preparedness there. Their visit concluded on Saturday.

They also met representatives of various political parties as well as deputy commissioners and superintendents of police, other government officials and the officials of central armed police forces in the state.

Last week, a five-member team of the Election Commission headed by Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar took stock of the state's preparedness for the assembly elections.

--IANS

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