The Election Commission largely failed to implement Covid protocols at hundreds of booths in the last phase of polls at 35 Assembly seats across four districts, mostly for lack of infrastructure and health workers.
Sources said Covid protocols were not followed in the booths mainly in the morning when a huge number of voters turned up to vote very early to avoid the blazing April sun.
Officials said it was hard to ensure social distancing and check if people were wearing masks when voters in districts started turning up by 6am.
“There is only one health worker giving sanitisers and also masks to voters without one. The number of masks provided by the Election Commission is one-fourth of the total voters. It also becomes tough to monitor 500 people at a time. If we ask voters to maintain physical distancing, the queue will go up to 5km,” said a Birbhum district official.