DC office sends notice for absence from poll duty to dead employee

Amritsar, May 30

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In an anomaly, a former employee of the municipal corporation (MC), who worked as a tubewell operator and had passed away four years ago, was sent a summon by the office of the Deputy Commissioner (DC) for not appearing for the election duty at a rehearsal held recently.

The family members of deceased Vimal Raj, who received the notice from the DC office at their residence, were confused as to why the notice was sent in the first place. The notice was issued on May 26.

In another incident, a retired employee Sukhjinder Kaur, who used to work as supervisor in the Department of Social Security and Women and Child Development, was also sent a notice of absence from the poll duty. These notices were issued on behalf of the DC office to all those employees, who were found absent from their poll duties, without giving any reason.

The list of these absent employees and the report on the recommended action is prepared by Assistant Returning Officers (AROs). In this case, the AROs concerned were clueless regarding mistake in the data provided to them by the MC.

The glitch was highlighted by an RTI activist Prashant Chauhan, who also uploaded the matter on a social media post of Voice of Amritsar, an NGO. He claimed that this was not an isolated incident.

Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner (UT) Sonam, while addressing the matter, shared that the Central Electoral Office had assigned the responsibility of listing and notifying poll duties to government employees to the AROs in each constituency. “The data of employees working in specific government departments is shared with us by officials of the department concerned. The AROs have been taking up the matter of assigning poll duties and issuing notices to ones, who are absent. The DC office has no direct dealing in this case. However, the matter of sending notices to employees, who have passed away, has been resolved by updating the data,” she said.