Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, Sept 20: Lakhs of rupees have been spent for spreading awareness among the voters to exercise their franchise but due to clash of CTET exam and election dates, hundreds of youths and many of their parents could not cast their votes in today’s Panchayat and Municipal Elections.
Since Friday hundreds and hundreds of youths started reaching Port Blair from different remote Islands to appear in CTET exam on 20th September, which was also the date for Municipal and Panchayat Election.
For these youths it was impossible to go back to the respective Islands to cast their votes and hence they had to make a choice between vote and CTET exam. Obviously youths opted for CTET exam as the crucial exam is directly connected to their future.
Not only this, hundreds of parents, who reached Port Blair with their kids’ CTET exam also failed to cast their vote.
Since the declaration of election dates several political parties and media had pointed out that such clash of dates would reduce the polling percentage but no one paid any heed.
“I have two papers today and don’t even have time for lunch. How can I go for casting votes, although want to cast my vote,” said a candidate.
Adding to the pain many candidates, who are already government servant and wanted to appear in CTET exam could not come to Port Blair for CTET exam due to election duties.
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