India General Elections 2024: Many levels of mobile ban

Twelve-year-old Saqlain Khan held phones while citizens voted

According to the election officials' announcement on Sunday, mobile phones were banned at polling booths throughout the city. However, observations at different polling stations revealed varying levels of enforcement of this ban. While some stations were lenient, simply requiring voters to switch off their phones, others provided tables outside the booths for storing bags and phones.

In contrast, a few stations enforced a strict no-mobile zone within a 100-metre radius. Interestingly, the strictness of these bans appeared to correlate with the location of the booths, whether in slum areas or high-rise neighbourhoods.

At a major poll station at RTO ground, police were strict about the mobile phone ban

After a few reels of voting inside the booths went viral, the Election Commission of India (ECI) instructed to implement a mobile ban inside polling booths. The ban has been in place for many years, but this time it is being implemented across Mumbai. At Tulashiwadi centre in Tardeo, police were asking to keep mobiles out of centres but if the voters didn't have a backup plan, then they were allowing them to keep their essentials/bags at the table counter outside the station.

The booth had a middle-class Marathi and Gujarati crowd from neighbouring chawls and towers. Around 500 metres away in a major poll station at RTO ground, police were just not allowing a single mobile where the voters were coming from slum pockets. Around 50 to 70 voters were outside, waiting for relatives to keep their mobiles.

In the posh Malabar Hill area, cops were lenient with the phone ban

A 12-year-old boy Saqlain Khan was holding seven mobiles. "One of my relatives called me to hold their mobile phones and then everyone started to keep their mobiles," explained Saqlain. Police officers said they did not have a comprehensive system in place to keep so many mobiles.

The situation was different at Kambala Hill High School polling station in Malabar Hill, which is termed as a high society. People were coming up to the gates of the schools in their vehicles and some even returned after noticing queues of 15 to 20 voters. Security personnel were asking them politely to keep mobiles away. Some opted to keep mobiles in vehicles and others were seen keeping their phones on the table outside the booth.

Visiting Dongri polling station near J J hospital, where the crowd was much larger, altogether a different experience where police and security forces did not allow anyone to get inside with mobiles.

100
Radius in mts around booth for phone ban