Calcutta, May 2: The poll panel’s experiment to introduce Braille voting machines in two city constituencies has bombed apparently because of the booth managers’ failure to co-operate with the visually-challenged.

The officers were supposed to provide the voters a Braille ballot from where they were to pick the order in which the candidates’ names occurred in the voting machines.

These voters then had to match the numbers, written in Braille alongside the buttons on the machines, and vote.

But the officers failed to offer the Braille ballots when they had to.

In their absence, five people in Burrabazar and Bowbazar voted with the help of companions, though Braille voting machines had been set up at each of the 183 polling stations there.

Ram Avtar Jakhotia, 38, who went to vote at Mukhram Kanoria School in Burrabazar, said why he needed his father to vote when he could have done it himself. “When I reached the polling station with my father, the presiding officer asked him to escort me straight to the Braille EVM. The machine had only the numbers ? one, two, three and four ? in Braille alongside the buttons. I couldn’t make out which number stood for which party and asked my father for help. Without it, I couldn’t have voted.”

Jakhotia, who runs an STD booth and a courier service on MG Road, added: “I wasn’t given the Braille ballot. A good move on the part of the commission went waste because of the polling personnel.”

Deputy election commissioner Anand Kumar said the commission has sought a report on the matter from the chief electoral officer.

“We’d taken great pains to introduce the Braille system. I don’t know why the presiding officers didn’t help the voters. We’ll ask the presiding officers what went wrong,” said the chief electoral officer.