Voters to be photographed, finger-printed for first time

PANAJI - For the first time in India’s electoral history, voters casting their ballot in a by-election here scheduled Oct 18, will be fingerprinted and photographed at the time of voting, a top official said.

According to North Goa District Collector Mihir Vardhan, the novel policy of photographing and fingerprinting of voters at the polling booth itself was approved by the Election Commission two days ago and is being introduced in consultation with candidates contesting the by-poll.

“The software has been developed by Goa Electronics Ltd (GEL). This will help us in identifying and zeroing down on the exact voter and will make the process transparent,” Vardhan said.

The fingerprinting and photography have been made compulsory for all voters, which includes women wearing burkhas.

“We have also started a voters facilitation centre at every polling booth, which will be computer equipped. Each voter will be able to search their name, serial number or part number immediately at the click of a button,” Vardhan said.

“We had purchased netbooks for all our talathis (ground level revenue officials) for carrying out crop surveys. The same netbooks will be used to carry out both exercises at the Valpoi by-poll,” Vardhan said.

There are 17,912 registered voters in the Valpoi legislative assembly constituency.

The by-poll was necessitated after the elected legislator Vishwajeet Rane, who contested as an Independent candidate in the last assembly poll, resigned to join the Congress party. He is contesting against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Santosh Haldankar.