Election Duty: Some Reminiscences

25th September

As obvious as it may seem to the readers, the recent LG Elections made headlines with voters exercising their franchise. I was deputed to one of the polling stations in south Thimphu. Khasadapchu MSS was the polling station where the largest numbers of voters (726) in Thimphu are enrolled.

The very first meal

25^th of September was a wet day. In fact Thimphu was drenched beginning the 24^th. In the rain, I and many others had to collect the EVM’s and other official papers before we moved to our respective polling stations. Arriving at the polling station, the hall was packed with plastic chairs and dusty floors. The first thing we did was arranged all the chairs and swept the huge floor. We then arranged a few tables for the poll day. We made our beds on the stage.

I had pre-arranged a large rice cooker, a curry cooker, some bowls and provisions for the nine of us in my team. We started cooking towards the evening. The huge hall had lots of tables besides the ones that we had already arranged. So Lopen Tshering and I arranged a small corner as dining table for the team. We ate broccoli stew, rice and boiled eggs with some pickles for dinner.

26^th September 2016 

My Station

Waking up at 7 we washed our faces and by the time I woke up my security police –lopens had done preparing breakfast. After the meal, arranging of the machines and materials had to be done and this was the very reason why we had to be a day ahead at the polling station. The morning, we spent on making things ready and in the afternoon, some of us slept as we had difficulty sleeping in such a large hall.

27th September 2016

My team

Waking up early and getting ready was a mandate and after doing that we found ourselves conducting the mock poll before our team. After the mock poll, people were lining up even before 9 AM. Candidates had to be present during the mock poll but they weren’t around. A full day of voting gave us exactly 420 voters out of 726. We declared the results and reported it to the ECB and called our day off. The next day as I collected my perks for the duty, the amount freaked me out. I was underpaid. But nevertheless,  there was pleasure as well as pressure, so measure for measure, the pleasure far outweighed the pressure. 

Oh! How I missed my two little kids at home…there’s nothing like home be it under a bridge.