Postal voting continues in jails with over 4500 inmates' votes already cast
Voting will continue on Sunday (8 February), the prison official said.
For the first time, voting is being conducted in prisons across the country through postal ballots, with 4,538 inmates exercising their voting rights over the past five days.
The information was confirmed by Assistant Inspector General of Prisons (Development), Md Jannat-ul-Farhad.
In a statement sent to the media, he said that from Tuesday (3 February) to Saturday (7 February), a total of 4,538 inmates cast their votes through postal ballots.
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Of them, 1,521 voted on Tuesday, 988 on Wednesday, 1,138 on Thursday, 420 on Friday and 471 today( 7 February).
He added that among the 471 inmates who voted on Saturday, 448 were male and 23 were female. In addition, 16 special-category inmates also cast their votes that day.
Voting will continue on Sunday (8 February), the prison official said.
Explaining the voting procedure over the phone, Jannat-ul-Farhad told The Business Standard that each registered inmate is being given a packet containing three envelopes. These include a ballot paper for the parliamentary election and separate ballot papers for the referendum with "Yes" and "No" options. After casting their votes, inmates seal the envelopes and submit them to prison authorities, who later send them to the returning officer.
According to sources at the Department of Prisons, although there are 84,400 inmates in 75 prisons across the country, only 6,240 registered to vote through the designated election app. After verification, registrations of 5,920 inmates were finalised.
