BBMP Commissioner and Bangalore Urban Election Officer M Lakshminarayana said the Election Commission and BBMP officials were well prepared to hold elections in the Lok Sabha constituencies in the BBMP limits. He requested people, political leaders and workers to cooperate in conducting peaceful polls.
Lakshminarayana was speaking at a joint press conference along with City Police Commissioner Raghavendra H Auradkar. He said, “Awareness campaigns since last December have helped add six lakh new voters in the city. There are 62.97 lakh voters in the BBMP limits and 85 per cent of them have already been given voter slips. The remaining voters will get the slips in the next two days.”
“As many as 7,712 polling stations come under the BBMP limits and 40,000 officials have been deployed for election duties after two rounds of training. Around 900 BMTC buses, 200 mini buses and other vehicles will be used for the election. We have established 50 model polling stations in each constituency and they will have basic facilities such as electricity, toilets, ramp, shade, drinking water and furniture. Besides, web-casting facility in which the process of voting can be watched on the Election Commission website, has also been arranged at 593 booths. Arrangements are also made for mustering and demustering,” he said.
Voting will start at 7 am at all the booths and end at 6 pm. “For the first time, Voter-verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) has been introduced in seven constituencies in the country. The system is being introduced in Bangalore South constituency also. There will be no change in the process of voting and it is just an additional confidence building exercise in which voters can verify that their vote was cast correctly as a printout showing the details of the vote cast will be generated by the machine. The voter can see the printout for seven seconds after which it will fall into the ballot seal compartment,” he explained.
Notice to Candidates
Lakshminarayan also said the authorities have issued notices to Bangalore South BJP candidate Ananth Kumar and Bangalore Central Congress candidate Rizwan Arshad seeking an explanation over paid news issues. “Ananth Kumar’s news was published in a Kannada evening newspaper while Arshad’s news appeared in an Urdu newspaper,” he said.
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