Poll booth staff carry disabled youth, others climb up stairs

PUNE: Twentytwo-year old Pranav Ijantkar, a first-time voter, was happy he could cast his vote, his joy writ large on his face.
The polling staff, who had brought a smile to his face, were initially in fix when they did not find Pranav’s name in the list of disabled voters. They spotted it in the regular voters’ list at Sandeshnagar polling station in Market Yard.
The lapse meant that the wheelchair-bound Pranav would not have been able to cast his vote at the booth for the disabled specially arranged on the ground floor.
The booth staff members, instead of cribbing, lifted the youth with his wheelchair and took him to the polling booth on the first floor so that he could vote.
“We had even thought of ordering a stretcher had his parents refused to let us lift and carry him to the first floor. The parents cooperated and we could lift him with his wheelchair with the help of four staff members,” Balasaheb Gaikwad, zonal officer at the polling station at Late Shrikant Bhadke Primary School in Sandeshnagar.
A loose stone at Sinhagad fort had fallen on Pranav’s head in 2016. “He had gone to the fort with his friends. The accident paralysed his left side. He cannot even talk now,” Manoj Ijantkar, his father, said.
Hardships for others
A ramp at Bhadke school facilitated people with disability but many others faced hardships in casting their vote in the absence of a ramp or other facilities in other polling stations.
Shyamrao Nandgarkar, who cast his vote at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose School in Yerawada, said he had to use the stairs to go up to the third floor of the building.
“I am crippled and cannot walk without help. Here, there were no arrangements and I had to go up the stairs by myself,” he told TOI.
Emma (48), walked out after casting her vote from a polling booth located at Fatimanagar, was not happy.
“We had to park 150m away and walk to the polling booth. The administration should relax the regulation for people like us. I have a severe knee problem,” she told TOI.
At the Sane Guruji Smarak School near Dandekar Bridge, many complained about improper arrangements including absence of ramps. Sources said that without the arrangements made, many elderly and people with disability had to somehow go to the first floor by stairs to cast their vote.