Dehra Dun, February 21
Visually impaired Prashant Dabral (50) was pleasantly surprised when he came to know that he would be able to cast his vote with the help of a Braille-based Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). The Election Commission has set up a separate polling booth for the voters like him at the National Institute for Visually Handicapped (NIVH) in the Rajpur Assembly constituency of Uttarakhand.
A music teacher at the institute, he was annoyed when the poll officials stopped his wife Vimla Dabral who was accompanying him to assist in casting vote, from entering the booth. But, he relented after being informed that he could do so on his own.
“You can’t imagine my joy when I pressed the button on the EVM. I had never exercised franchise without assistance”, he said. The names of candidates and their symbols are inscribed in Braille on the EVM.
The polling booth at the institute has 383 voters. Seventyeight voters like him had cast their vote by 1pm. Director of institute Anuradha Mohit, who is also visually impaired, failed to cast her vote. She is believed to have returned highly disappointed when she reached the polling booth around 11 am because her name was missing from the electoral rolls.
Uttarakhand CEO N. Ravi Shanker, said the separate booth was set up on an experimental basis for the first time in the
country.
