Elaborate arrangements made for Assembly elections – DC Priyanka Mary
Udupi: The district administration has made elaborate arrangements to ensure smooth polling for the Assembly elections on May 12.
Priyanka Mary Francis, Deputy Commissioner Udupi district, told presspersons here on May 10 that as per the guidelines, the ongoing campaigning in all assembly constituencies would come to an end 48 hours prior to the polling date.
Subsequently, all the political leaders, functionaries or Party workers who are not the registered voters will have to vacate the constituency within this period. Necessary guidelines have been issued to the police and civil administration to ensure that outsiders leave immediately.
The district administration will set up 1,103 polling booths. A total number of 6342 personnel drawn from various departments would be deputed for poll duty.
She said that prohibitory orders under Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code would be clamped in the district from May 10 to 6 p.m till May 13, to maintain peace and order during polling. Taking out processions and staging protests would be banned during this period.
The Election Commission will provide first aid kits for the first time in Karnataka to all the polling booths. The first aid kit will contain six different medicines including tablets for fever, cold, allergy, antiseptic band-aids and ORS packets.
The district administration has planned to provide magnifying glasses to help the visually-challenged voters at all polling stations in the district. In all, 555 polling booths require wheelchairs and 328 polling booths require Magnifying Glasses which would be arranged through the district administration.
The model polling booth will not have queues where the voters stand to cast their franchise. Instead, the voters will be made to sit in a lounge, having volunteers who will issue a token to go and cast their franchise.
To ensure transparency and monitoring of any untoward incidents on the Election Day, the Election Commission has facilitated Internet Protocol-based webcasting of proceedings from 132 critical and sensitive polling booths.
On the polling staff, the DC said that 6342 polling staff members are required for the electoral process. Akshara Dasoha staff have been asked to prepare food for the staff in the school and the fund has been released to the schools, she said.
Additional DC Anuradha was also present in the press meet.