There are as many as 70.32 lakh voters in Bangalore, which has a population of over 85 lakh, according to Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner Siddaiah, who is also the District Electoral Officer.
Siddaiah told reporters that during revision of voters’ list between July and December last year, many names were deleted on genuine grounds. “As on April 16 this year, we were able to register an additional 13 lakh names and with this, the number of voters in Bangalore increased to 70.32 lakh. The electoral population ratio is now 100:67.58. On an average, the male and female ratio is 1000: 912,” he added.
On poll preparedness, Siddaiah said each constituency will have six flying squads consisting of an executive magistrate, three to four armed policemen, a videographer and other personnel.
They will do the rounds in the constituencies every day and record public functions, he said, adding that they will also record any violation of the election code of conduct.
Apart from this, there will be static surveillance team, which will also have a videographer to check and record the vehicles/people entering from various entry points like Tumkur, Hoskote, Mysore, Anekal and Chikballapur roads. “We also have a video viewing team which will view the videos recorded by the flying squads and static surveillance teams,” he said.
As many as 28 expenditure observers have arrived from other states, including IAS and IPS officers. Siddaiah said that unlike previous elections, voting will be conducted completely through Electronic Voting Machines. “We are training polling officers on April 22, 28 and also on May 4. We have already identified the counting centres across the city,” he said.
7,258 Polling Booths
There will be 7,258 polling booths in the city of which 2,153 booths are identified as sensitive and 1,782 as hyper-sensitive. “There will be central paramilitary force personnel deputed at hyper-sensitive booths,” he said. There are 31,933 employees from State and Central governments who will be deputed as polling officers. This excludes police personnel, he said.
This time, polling booths have been made people-friendly by including facilities such as toilets, ramp for physically challenged voters, drinking water and other basic amenities.
Exemption Sought
Dr R Vishal, BBMP additional commissioner (Elections) said they are getting applications from various government employees to exempt them from poll duty. Some of them are genuine cases who have applied on health grounds. “Except in genuine cases, no officer will be exempted from election duty,” he said. “We are expecting at least 3,000 applications from those who wish to be exempted from poll duty,” he said.