Election Commission to offer free pick-up and drop for disabled voters in Maharashtra
The Election Commission of India (ECI) will provide a pick-up and drop service for voters with disabilities in the coming Lok Sabha election, an official in Maharashtra said on Thursday. The state has 2,24,162 voters registered as persons with disabilities (PwD) across its 48 Lok Sabha constituencies.
How the service will work
The commission has developed a mobile application called PWD, to be activated in a few days, through which registered PwD voters can request the service. It will be available on the Android Play Store; it was not yet clear whether it would also be offered on Apple’s App Store.
Dilip Shinde, Maharashtra’s Additional Chief Electoral Officer, said the service would be entirely free, with the ECI bearing the full cost. The commission has engaged NGOs working with people with disabilities as well as auto and taxi operators. Use of the service is voluntary, but registration is mandatory. Vehicles and helpers will be arranged for each polling centre based on the number of PwD voters identified through the rolls.
Why the change
An ECI official said such voters were currently often taken to booths by political parties, which put pressure on them to vote for that party and had led to clashes between rival supporters. Shinde said that ideally no party should be transporting voters, and that this time the election machinery itself would collect voters from home and drop them back.
Special camps have been held for visually impaired voters to explain the new system, and officials have been instructed on how to assist PwD voters.
Maharashtra’s electorate
- Total voters: 8,73,30,484
- Men: 4,57,02,579; women: 4,16,25,819
- Registered as ‘other’: 2,086
Booth-level camps will be held across the state on February 23 and 24 to inform voters about VVPAT machines and new voter ID cards, and to let them check their names on the rolls.
What happened next
Voting in the 2019 Lok Sabha election took place from 11 April to 19 May, and votes were counted on 23 May 2019.
See also: elections.
Originally published on 22 February 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.
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