Preparations in full swing for Lok Sabha polls – DC Hephsiba Rani Korlapati
Udupi: As the Lok Sabha elections are nearing, Udupi district administration has kick-started preparations for conducting fair elections. All activities pertaining to preparation of voters list, polling booths, deploying staff etc have been initiated, said the Deputy Commissioner Hephsiba Rani Korlapati.
Speaking at a press meet held at the Court Hall of the DC office on Thursday, March 7, the DC said that as of March 3, 2019, there are 990773 voters in the district, of which, 477243 are men, 513514 women and 16 Transgenders.
“There will be 1111 polling booths in the district. 45 flying squads and 5 assistant election officers will be deployed for the purpose. The Deputy Commissioner of Udupi district is the chief election officer for Udupi-Chikkamagaluru Lok Sabha Constituency. Kusumadhar Gowda has been appointed as the assistant election commissioner of Byndoor Constituency. Dr S S Madhukeshwar has been appointed as the assistant election commissioner for Kundapur and Kempe Gowda has been appointed as the assistant election commissioner for Udupi Constituency. Nagaraj and Santhosh have been appointed assistant election commissioners for Kaup and Karkala assembly constituency,” she said.
The election commission has also started a helpline for public convenience and one can call 1950 for election-related information. A control room has been set up at the office of the deputy commissioner to receive any election-related complaints which will function round the clock.
The Election Commission has introduced an Android-based mobile application named ‘cVigil’ for citizens to share proof of malpractices by political parties, their candidates and activists when the Model Code of Conduct will come in force. ‘cVigil’ provides facilities for uploading geo-tagged photographic and video evidence, which can also be done without disclosing the sender’s identity. The evidence will be sent to a control room, which will then alert the field units and flying squads for immediate action. In case the complainant does not opt for anonymity, the person will also get an action-taken report within about 100 minutes.
With the aim of increasing turnout for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the district administration has already launched voter awareness programmess through district SWEEP committee. The demonstration of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) will be organized at the gram panchayat level across the district.
The VVPATs with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will be used during the Lok Sabha elections. There will be a ballot unit, a control unit and a VVPAT unit in every polling station. The demonstration of the functioning of VVPATs will be held in all urban local bodies and rural local bodies so that people came to know about its functioning and could clarify their doubts, she said.
As per the directions of the Election Commission of India, several rounds of meetings have been conducted with the officials to be deployed on poll duty. Now, the administration is concentrating on increasing the voting percentage and a lot of activities under SWEEP have been taken up, she said.
Additional DC Vidya Kumari was also present during the press meet.