Chennai: To make differently-abled electors participate in the poll process, EC’s website will be made accessible soon, and CEOs messages for elections will be available in plain language, according to CEC Nasim Zaidi.
He was responding to Disability Rights Alliance (DRA), which presented to him a list of concerns, and agreed that people with severe disabilities should not be made to come to polling booths but allowed postal voting.
The CEC agreed to increase the number of media campaigns and special camps and asked DRA to take up with political parties on the need to create more awareness on developmental works.
He also ensured that EC will write to political parties not to use derogatory terms against disability. “There are special camps for intellectually disabled in Tamil Nadu but in certain taluks issues are being created by tahsildars. Also, in Kerala and West Bengal, none of the intellectually abled has been enrolled as voters,” said Smitha Sadasivan of DRA.
As of now only Tamil Nadu and Assam have partially implemented accessible polling booths. Through random access audits of polling booths across Chennai, it was found that many polling stations do not have ramps, toilets, drinking water facilities, etc.
The group has also asked the CEC to make available data on differently-abled voters in India’s Open Data Repository. According to Smitha, in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the differently-abled enjoy better voting scenario compared to other states.
