Over 700 schoolteachers who worked as polling officials in the Uttar Pradesh panchayat elections have died of Covid-19. More are in danger, with 8 lakh new cases reported in just 30 days around the polls.

by @ApkiJigyasa, illustrations by Antara Raman https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/up-panchayats-for-whom-the-polls-toll/

Even as he lay in a hospital bed, on oxygen and struggling for life, Ritesh Mishra’s mobile kept ringing with calls were from the State Election Commission and government authorities demanding that he show up for duty on May 2 – the counting day.

He died of Covid-19 on April 29.

Panchayat polls in UP are a gigantic exercise and this one saw nearly 1.3 million candidates contesting over 8 lakh seats. With 130 million eligible voters, it involved printing 520 million ballot papers. Running this process held obvious risks for all polling officials.

The protests of the teachers and their unions against this form of duty were ignored.

As the UP Shishak Mahasangh pointed out in a letter to the state election commissioner on April 12, there were no real protections, protocols on distancing or facilities to guard the teachers.

“The arrangements for the safety of the government staff arriving for poll duty were negligible” says Santosh Kumar (43). He is the headmaster of a primary school in Lucknow’s Gosaiganj, and worked on both voting days as well as on the counting day.

A curious feature of the unfolding disaster was that though it was mandatory for the agents reaching the centre to have negative RT-PCR certificates, there was never any checking for that. Santosh Kumar told us that this and other guidelines were never followed at the centres.

Candidates and supporters gathered at the counting booths on May 2 in Bareilly; no distancing or Covid protocols were in place. 713 – 540 men and 173 women teachers have died – with the toll still mounting.

The Shikshak Mahasangh have sought that “any individual getting Covid-19 infection should get a minimum sum of 20 lakh rupees towards treatment. In case of accident or death, the family of the deceased should get a sum of 50 lakhs.”

The UP government has told the Allahabad High Court it has “decided to give compensation of Rs.30,00,000/- to the family members of the deceased polling officers." However, the State Election Commission’s counsel told the court that they had reports of 77 deaths so far.