masaurhi patna the enthusiasm among the firsttime voters and the octogenarians was the same as people braved the covid19 fear to cast their votes in the first phase of bihar assembly election on wednesday the election commission had made elaborate arrangements of masks sanitisers and gloves at polling boothsanganwadi asha workers and anms were deployed at the booths to sanitise the voters hands and provide them with gloves while maintaining social distancing at booths packets of earbuds were also provided to polling officers for marking the fingers of those coming to votes presiding and polling officers as well as security personnel were provided with face masks shields gloves alcoholbased sanitisers however presiding officer sanjeev lochan mishra at booth number 203a in masaurhi said they had been provided with less than 50 of the required gloves for 655 electors booth level officer amit prakash said 1800 electors were registered at booth number 203 203a and 204 but only 200 gloves were supplied to them for each boothshivani kumari a firsttime voter from nadwan in masaurhi assembly seat said she voted for improvement in education standards in the state we need employment facilities at government hospital near our village are poor we have to pay bribe at police stations for getting an fir lodged these things need to change she saidanita devi 55 also from nadwan said she was expecting employment for her husband and sonsupendra sharma and narendra prasad sharma at nadwan said they voted to improve the law and order situation earlier we could not even think of returning to masaurhi from patna after sunset now we travel even at midnight they said and added that the next government should focus on providing proper electricity to farmers for irrigationmanoj kumar of sarwa in masaurhi said his vote should get good health facilities at government hospitals the government hospital near our village has no facilities he ruedsanju kumari along with her husband jitendra prasad had the countrys safety as the top priority though this is assembly election but we voted so that the country remains in safe hands they addedpresiding and polling officers had comparatively less pressure as there were no long queues brajesh kumar presiding officer of booth number 52a in masaurhi said earlier we didnt even have time to leave our seats but this time we are conducing election in relaxed manner as there is less crowd at a boothpolling officeri mohamamd raghib hussain at booth number 45a said he thought conducting election would be tough but it was much easiervoters without masks were not allowed to enter the booths village women were spotted using their stoles or sari to cover mouth and nose while men used gamchhas at sarwa in masaurhi paramilitary personnel didnt allow an elector to enter the booth as he had no mask a covillager helped him with his towel at a masaurhi block office booth an anganwadi worker asha kumari alleged that she had been deployed at the entrance for sanitising all those coming