'Polling booths near hospitals for sick to vote'

Noted Urdu poet Manzar Bhopali has written to the Election Commission urging it to set up polling booths near government and private hospitals so as to facilitate sick people to exercise their right to franchise.

Madhya Pradesh is slated to have Assembly elections next month.

In a letter written to the EC yesterday, Bhopali expressed concern that a large number of people admitted in hospitals owing to some ailments may not be able to cast their vote in the forthcoming elections.

He said that there were thousands of people in different hospitals who were not physically fit to go outside but mentally fit and wished to vote.

"When there are efforts to get every person to exercise his/her franchise, there should be a system to ensure that the hospitalised people should also get to vote," Manzar wrote in the letter, while urging the EC to take necessary steps in this regard.

He said he realised this aspect while he was attending to his mother who was hospitalised for a treatment where he met some patients who expressed that they wanted to vote in the upcoming Assembly elections.

"It was then that I thought that sick people are unable to vote," said Manzar, who also runs a social organisation.

In his letter to the EC, he suggested that polling booths should be set up near government and private hospitals so that every citizen gets involved in the process to elect the government.

He said a copy of the letter was also marked to Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Jaideep Govind, who said that "efforts are on to ensure that every citizen is able to vote."

"We will definitely focus on this aspect as well," Govind said.