The initiative of the Election Commission to facilitate the 'Divyang' or voter with disabilities to enable them to cast their vote without any hassle in all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana received appreciation by those who availed this facility Sunday.
Several of these voters were provided with a wheelchair at polling stations and vehicles were provided to them to exercise their franchise.
Names of 1,04,534 physically challenged voters out of a total voter strength of over 1.80 crore were registered in the electoral rolls across the state, Haryana Joint Chief Electoral Officer Inder Jeet said.
Polling remained peaceful on all the 10 LS seats on Sunday.
The 'Divyang' voters were contacted at the district level so as to provide them the vehicles to bring them to the polling booth and later drop them back at their homes.
"Apart from this, arrangement of wheelchair was made at the polling stations where more than 20 Divyang voters were registered. In this way, 2,631 wheelchairs were provided across the state to encourage the Divyang voters to cast their vote," Inder Jeet said.
As many as 9,911 volunteers, who were below 18 years of age, especially school students and NCC cadets were deployed across the state. After voting, arrangements were made to drop back the Divyang voters at their homes, he said.
For the first time, Braille script language was written on ballot paper to facilitate 237 visually challenged voters in the state so that they could exercise their franchise by reading the names of the candidates of their choice without any help.
An elderly physically challenged voter, who exercised his franchise in Sirsa, appreciated the efforts of the Election Commission to facilitate voters like him.
"It is a noble step which they have taken and it deserves appreciation," he said.
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