A 53-year-old polling official, who was deployed for election duty in Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar, died after suffering cardiac arrest on Thursday while on duty. The official, identified as Shanthamurthy, is a resident of Chamarajanagar’s Mahalingapura in Hanur.
Shanthamurthy was a lecturer at the Government Pre-University College in Hanur. According to Chamarajanagar Deputy Commissioner BB Kaveri, Shanthamurthy was deployed for election duty at booth number 48 as reserved staff.
Around 9 am on Thursday, Shanthamurthy was walking out of the room at the polling booth when he suffered a cardiac arrest.
“The security personnel immediately called an ambulance and he was rushed to the Chamarajanagar District Hospital. He was alive when he was taken to hospital but the doctors declared him dead. He did not respond to the treatment,” DC Kaveri added.
Shanthamurthy is survived by his wife and two children.
DC Kaveri said that his family will be offered Rs 15 lakh as compensation. “The Election Commission has decided to give a compensation of Rs 15 lakh to the family of officers who died while performing election duty. They will be rightly compensated. This is an extremely unfortunate incident. The polling was not disrupted and it is continuing smoothly,” she added.
In Tamil Nadu’s Erode, 63-year-old resident Murugesan died while waiting in line to cast his vote. Murugesan was waiting in line at the Government Boys Higher Secondary School polling station in Sivagiri when he fainted. Voters nearby tried to help him and he was rushed to Sivagiri Government Hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. The cause of his death has been determined to be a cardiac arrest. His body is currently at the hospital.
Voting began across 14 Parliamentary constituencies including Udupi-Chikmagalur, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga (SC), Tumkur, Mandya, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar (SC), Bengaluru Rural, Bengaluru North, Bengaluru Central, Bengaluru South, Chikkaballapur and Kolar (SC) are the constituencies wherein polling is happening on Thursday.