BENGALURU: Over 2.88 crore eligible voters will cast their franchise on April 26 in the Phase-2 of polling in south and coastal Karnataka’s 14 parliamentary constituencies, including those in the state capital.
Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, Manoj Kumar Meena, said there are 2,88,19,342 voters in Phase-2, of which 1,44,28,099 voters are male, 1,43,88,176 female and 3,067 third gender. Meena also launched the Chunavane app on Wednesday. It is available on Playstore and citizens can download it to find their polling booths. It tells voters the live status of the queue at their booth and show them parking spaces, Meena said.
A total of 1,39,495 poll officials and 5,000 micro-observers will be on duty. In all, 65 companies of paramilitary forces and 50,000 police officials have been deployed on election duty at 30,602 polling booths. Webcasting will be done from 19,701 booths, while 1,370 booths will have CCTV cameras. The 14 parliamentary constituencies going to the polls on Friday are Udupi-Chikkamagalur, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga, Tumakuru, Mandya, Mysore-Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Bangalore Rural, Bangalore Central, Bangalore North, Bangalore South, Chikkaballapur and Kolar.
Meena said people will be inked on the left hand forefinger and booths will be open from 7 am to 6 pm. Because of high temperature in most parts of the state, people will be allowed to vote till 6 pm, and the booths will remain open till the last person votes. Business enterprises, industries and other institutions, where voters are working on permanent basis or on daily wages have been directed to sanction a paid holiday on April 26. Over 90% voter slips with QR codes have been distributed to voters. Once the voter scans the QR code, it will help the voter navigate to his booth. A trial was done in the teachers’ constituency election and was found successful.
Ramps, first-aid kits, ambulance facility, water, seating arrangement and other facilities have been arranged for voters. “We also had the Saksham app, where people can apply seeking for assistance like pick and drop from the booth, wheelchair and other needs. The App is now closed for inputs,” Meena said.