With the Election Commission announcing dates of Lok Sabha election on Saturday afternoon, the model code of conduct has come into force. The 10 Parliamentary constituencies in Vidarbha will go to polls on April 19 and April 26. Polling in Nagpur and Ramtek constituencies will be held on April 19. Addressing mediapersons, Dr Vipin Itankar, District Collector, said, “As far as Nagpur and Ramtek Lok Sabha constituencies are concerned, notification regarding elections will be issued on March 20. Candidates have to file nominations by March 27. Scrutiny of nominations will be held on March 28 with March 30 being the last date of withdrawal of nominations. On April 19 people will cast their votes, and counting will be held on June 4, 2024.” In Ramtek, 20,45,717 voters and in Nagpur 22,18,259 will cast their vote. Of the total voters in Ramtek, 10,43,266 are male while 10,02,396 voters are female. In Nagpur also the number of male voters (11,10,840) is more than the female voters (11,07,197). After the issuance of notification on March 20, candidates will get only seven days to file nominations. Of the seven days, three are holidays — Holi on March 25, second Saturday and Sunday on March 23 and March 24 respectively.

 

Considering only four working days, the administration has appealed to the candidates to file their nominations as early as possible. “We want more and more voters should come out of their homes and exercise their franchise. Our machinery is visiting households with an appeal to vote. Administration expects over 75% polling,” asserted Dr Itankar. Dr Ravinder Kumar Singal, Commissioner of Police informed mediapersons about the arrangements made by the police department regarding elections.

 

Tushar Thombare, Additional Collector who is in-charge of Ramtek constituency, Saumya Sharma, Chief Executive Officer of Zilla Parishad spoke about model code of conduct, Dr Harssh Poddar, Superintendent of Police gave detail information about deployment of police force during polls. Pravin Bahire, Deputy District Election Officer and others also were present. 4,510 poling stations in Nagpur and Ramtek A total of 2,105 polling stations will be set up in 6 assembly constituencies under Nagpur Lok Sabha constituency and 2, 405 polling stations will be set up in 6 assembly constituencies under Ramtek Lok Sabha constituency. Strong room and vote counting arrangements for both these constituencies will be made at Agriculture Produce Market Committee, Kalamna. A total of 7, 573 officers-employees have been appointed to carry out all these election system. Necessary manpower has been made available in the police department to conduct the elections peacefully.

 

Change in postal ballot system This time a change has been made in the process of casting vote through postal ballot. Till last elections people who are not able to come to their respective polling centres, used to send their ballot papers through post. This time Government has set up facilitation centres where these people have to go and submit the ballot papers. 

 

Absentee voters The teams of administration will visit the residences of the people of four categories-- having 85 plus age, people with disability (over 40% disability), suffering from COVID 19 and those who are into essential services and get their voting done. The process of distribution of form number 12-D has already started. People those come in above four categories have to fill up those forms and submit them with Collector office. The teams from Collectorate will reach to the people whose Form number 12-D are submitted and get their voting done. The team will have micro-observer, police personnel, political leader etc in whose presence the voting of the absentee voters would be done at their places.