Voters of 8 Parliamentary constituencies of the State including Dewas, Ujjain, Mandsaur, Ratlam, Dhar, Indore, Khargone and Khandwa will be using their suffrage rights in the fourth phase of elections on Monday. As per the information from the Election Commission (EC), 74 candidates will be crossing their fingers today among which 69 are male and remaining are female. Among the constituencies, 5 constituencies have no female candidates. Ironically, women constitute for 49.6 per cent of vote share in the areas where election is scheduled today. Speaking on the preparations of the EC, State Chief Election Officer Anupam Rajan said, “Voting teams have reached the polling booths for conducting the electoral process. The election which will commence from 7 am will experience a mock poll at 5 am along with EVMs and VVPAT machines.” Out of the total constituencies, Indore ranks first with having 14 voters whereas the least number of candidates have been recorded at Khargone with 5.

 

Information also stated that constituencies have over 2,000 centenarian voters along with around 88,000 voters crossing the age of 85. The fourth phase will also witness around 5 percent of teen voters. Among 18,007 polling booths made for the elections, 946 booths have been categorised as model polling booths and 2,001 are such where the all works will be managed by females. The Commission has also identified 53 critical regions and has also taken restrictive action against 130 people who are under the suspicion of disturbing the polling process. 191 flying squad teams (FSTs) and 257 state surveillance teams (SSTs) have been also deployed at the booths in order to ensure free and fair elections in the State.

 

The Commission has also double checked security of the booths by taking over 12,000 polling booths under webcasting. In the previous phases held in the State, a low turnout has been recorded in the state and to combat the problem, the commission has made various provision at the booths to woo the voters of the State. Several campaigns including ‘Chalein booth ki ore’ have been also flagged off in order to create awareness among the people to cast their franchise. The Commission has also made it clear that if any voter fails to carry his/her voter ID card, he/she can still participate in the festival of democracy by voting through 12 alternative documents.