Countdown begins for Assembly polls

 

 

With an aim of driving up voting percentage in urban areas, the district administration has finalised setting up polling stations at 11 high rise buildings and in 9 slum areas. The idea is that the electors need not have to walk more than 2 km to reach their polling booth, informed Dr Vipin Itankar, District Collector, while addressing press conference at the District Collectorate on Tuesday. Basically, these booths are going to be set-up where the voter number is more or more so in densely populated areas.

 

 

Over the year, the rapid urbanisation has seen changing way of residential colonies wherein township have come-up where at one place nearly 1,000 or odd people reside. Hence, the administration has identified such spots and would set up voting booth to ensure that maximum number of voters exercise their franchise. Dr Itankar has reaffirmed their resolution to achieve target of 75% voter turnout in upcoming assembly election that is scheduled to take place on November 20. Nisar Tamboli, Joint Commissioner of Police, Nagpur; Dr Harssh Poddar, Superintendent of Police, Nagpur (Rural); and Vinayak Mahamuni, Chief Executive Officer, Nagpur Zilla Parishad, were also present at the press conference. The administration will set up a total of 2,158 polling stations in six assembly constituencies in the city. Nagpur (North) constituency will feature most number of polling stations with 407 while Nagpur (Central) will have lowest with 308. Whereas Kamptee constituency has the highest number of polling stations in the district with 524. The district authorities have also decided to provided all permissions needed by candidates in one place for which one window system is set-up for faster processing of documents.

 

Dr Itankar also informed that the Election Commission will have a strict watch on social media and will take strict action on anti-social elements spreading misinformation. Vinayak Mahamuni informed that they will work actively to implement Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and will be keeping strict watch on the violations. He also appealed citizens to report violations of MCC they observe through apps like ‘cVigil’ app and other portals made available by ECI. When asked about claims of inclusion of bogus names in electoral list of Hingna Assembly segment, Dr Itankar said the issue has been resolved by the High Court. In the run upto elections, two companies of para-military forces would conduct route march to ensure free and fair elections. Also during the voting, 8 additional companies of security forces, including 3 of SRPF and 5 of CRPF, would be deployed in the district. To a querry, District Collector said data of arm license holders is compiled and soon they would be called to deposit their arms with police station. As to rural area, 9 multi agency checkposts have been established in district to keep watch on movement of vehicles during the electioneering. Any suspicious movement can be immediately tracked and necessary action taken, said Dr Poddar. Further as per the norms, an inter-state meeting was held with officials of neighbouring borders in states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for co-ordination till the time of counting. 

 

 

Dr Vipin Itankar, District Collector and District Election Officer appealed the voters to check their names in the electoral list beforehand to avoid chaos witnessed during recent Lok Sabha elections where many voters complained about absence of their names from voting list. He also informed that the citizens who want to vote in upcoming elections can still register before October 19, as it takes at least ten days to process and add names to electoral list. October 29 is the last date of adding names to the electoral list.