It’s a busy day for Tamil Nadu booth agents; they need to make sure the appropriate parties vote

The job that booth agents do today will determine the outcome of the campaign, which will last about a month. While commanders were busy organizing their booth agents, they were also scuttling through every available space to enlist support.

Booth agents are required to enter polling places as early as 5:30 am on election day and remain there until the last vote is cast in their capacity as party representatives.
In each booth, both sides shall have a minimum of ten agents (two inside and others outside). For a candidate, a booth will have two agents stationed inside. The primary agent will be one of them, and the reliever will be the other.

Tamilmarai, a DMK official who would be liaising with booth agents, described their responsibilities. “Voter count for a booth must be known by booth agents. They have to maintain tabs on who has cast a ballot, who hasn’t, and who is absent, out of town, or hasn’t yet. They also need to know ahead of time which party each person in the community is most likely to vote for. Party officials will get frequent updates from booth agents about voter turnout and voting conditions. Party workers ensure that every resident in a community casts a ballot based on the information they have. Agents have to make sure that no vote is lost for whatever reason.

He said that booth agents are often not hired or trained by Tamil Nadu’s main political parties. The booth agents will be the area-level employees. Newly trained individuals cannot take the place of their experience.

“They’ll get ID cards once they enter the polls at 5:30 a.m. A voter’s list and stationery to indicate a voter’s presence or absence would be sent to the party. They need to be present in the booth after the poll in order to get form 17c, which is an account of the votes cast and totals. After receiving it, the agents will provide it to the local supervisors.
In order to cross-check the poll %, Form 17c gathered from every booth would be assembled at the constituency offices, according to Tamilmarai.

While candidates would be visible till election day, booth agents will be noticeable, according to N Angannan, a key agent for AIADMK in Pollachi. Booth agents will be designated as well-known functionaries in their particular fields. Since they continue working on the election before it even happens and just take a little break after polling, they are probably full-time employees. When the votes are being counted, their role becomes crucial once again.

However, independent candidates have other challenges, such as staffing every station across the area. “There are 2,059 booths in Coimbatore constituency alone,” said independent candidate V Arunkanth. However, there are just around 40 volunteers. We are recruiting volunteers elsewhere. It is important that we have at least one person check the button that has been assigned to us, he said.