EC calls for bigger and bolder indelible voting mark on forefinger

The indelible ink mark on your forefinger signifying participation in democracy will now be ‘bigger and bolder’, helping you show it prominently in a selfie.

Updated on: Apr 2, 2015, 02:14:37 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The indelible ink mark on your forefinger signifying participation in democracy will now be ‘bigger and bolder’, helping you show it prominently in a selfie.

Women-show-their-inked-fingers-after-casting-votes-for-Assembly-elections-at-a-polling-station-in-East-Delhi-PTI-photo

The Election Commission (EC) has asked all chief electoral officers to ensure that henceforth, the mark is prominent enough to prevent it from being erased by impersonators and is visible from a distance.

The reason for the EC’s instruction was complaints that minimum application of the ink by polling officers helped impersonators remove it and make an attempt to vote again.

Several people in Mewat in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls had claimed to have voted but the mark was not visible, leading to re-polling in certain areas.

Earlier, the only instruction issued to polling officers was that the ink should be applied on the forefinger of the left hand. However, the practice will change now as the instructions issued last week say the ink will have to be applied with a brush instead of a wooden stick, from the tip of the nail till the first joint on one’s forefinger.

“The mark will be one inch long on the nail and skin of the forefinger and erasing it will not be possible,” a senior EC official said.

The EC has asked the polling official in-charge of the control unit (of the Electronic Voting Machine) to ensure that the ink is intact on the finger of electors before pressing the ballot button.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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