Bengal Election 2021: Trinamool Asks Election Body To Appoint Only Locals As Poll Booth Agents

The rule had been relaxed last week to allow agents to be appointed from any part of an assembly constituency.

A Trinamool Congress delegation, led by MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, has urged the Election Commission to bring back the rule which enjoined upon political parties to appoint only people, registered as voters in an assembly segment where an election booth was located, as polling agents for that booth. The rule had been relaxed last week to allow agents to be appointed from any part of an assembly constituency. Mr Bandyopadhyay, after meeting Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Aariz Aftab, said that only locals, living in the assembly segment where the booth was located should be appointed as polling agents by parties "as was the practice earlier." "After representations by BJP, the Election Commission has changed the long established tradition of asking parties to have polling agents from the same locality and this has caused a lot of problems in the booths in the first phase as many of the agents don't even know each other," he said.