Lucknow: Showing one’s middle finger is normally considered rude, disrespectful and even vulgar but when the second phase of panchayat elections begins later this month in Uttar Pradesh, voters will have no option but to show their middle finger to photographers.
This awkward situation has arisen because the state election commission (SEC) has ordered that the indelible ink will be applied on the middle finger during the panchayat elections.
The order comes because the first phase of panchayat elections has just ended and the ink applied on the index finger of voters is yet to come off.
According to the State Election Commissioner, Satish K. Agarwal, this is the first time that the panchayat polls were being conducted in two phases with a gap of less than a month. “The last polling date of the first round was October 29 and the first polling date for the next phase is November 29.
The ink which is applied on the index finger of the left hand of voters before they cast their votes, takes more than a month to come off. So, when the voters vote again the second round, the ink will have to be applied on the middle finger,” he explained.
The election commission has launched an aggressive campaign through the media and other sources to disseminate this information to the polling staff and the 11.5 crore voters in the state.
In another first, the state election commission has decided to deploy drone cameras in communally sensitive districts including Muzaffarnagar, Mee-rut, Saharanpur and Shamli. The SEC will be holding polls for nearly 59,500 posts of village panchayat heads.
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