Karwar: The district administration of Uttara Kannada has made all preparations for the Lok Sabha elections to be held in the district on April 23. Presently, there were 15.34 lakh voters in the district and to improve the percentage of voting, it has organised several awareness programmes, informed Deputy Commissioner Dr K Harishkumar who is also the District Election Officer.
Speaking at a press conference in Karwar on Monday, he said that this time, photo voter slips cannot be used as standalone identification documents during elections. The voters will have to carry any one of several approved identification cards to the polling booth to be able to cast their vote. The list of 11 documents that would be considered for verification of a voter’s identity at the time of voting are: passport, driving license, service identity cards issued by government, passbook with photograph, PAN card, smart card issued by Registrar General of India, MNREGA job card, health insurance smart card, pension document, identity cards issued to elected representatives and Aadhaar card. All these documents must have a photograph of the voter.
‘Special’ facility
Harishkumar said that polling booths with more number of physically-challenged voters will be identified as ‘model’ in every Assembly constituency and will be painted blue in colour. Also, transport facility will be provided to physically-challenged voters and Braille facility to the blind. This apart, wheel chair and ramp facility will be provided at the polling booth.
He said that 12 ‘Sakhi’ booths including two in every Assembly constituency will be set up in the district. Only women officers will be deployed at those booths. “One additional election staff member will be deployed in every booth this time as Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) would be used in the elections. Every booth will have four election staff members. This would mean that as many as 7,472 officers will be deployed on election duty,” he informed.
Harishkumar said that 92 polling stations in the district will not be connected to any form of phone (landline or mobile phones). In some places, wireless connections will be used. In other places, two runners will be appointed.
Security aspects
Superintendent of Police Vinayak Patil said that as many as 286 polling booths have been identified as sensitive and 78 as highly sensitive in the district. Centre’s paramilitary forces will be deployed to maintain security there. 317 people with criminal background had been identified in the district and 1,119 cases had been registered against 314 people. Of them, security deposit and undertaking have been sought from 180 people. He said that it has been proposed to book one person with a serious criminal background under the Goonda Act and extern five people. 30 checkposts had been set up at Majali and Anmod.
‘Deposit guns’
“There are 8,579 licensed guns in the district and all the gun holders have been asked to deposit the guns in the
nearest police stations. Already, 2,000 guns had been deposited in the stations,” Patil informed.
Zilla panchayat Chief Executive Officer Mohammed Roshan said that to stem the flow of liquor and cash
during the Lok Sabha (LS) elections, and for effective monitoring of the poll process, 144 sector officers had been appointed and 36 flying squads had been constituted. In addition to this, 17 static surveillance teams (SST), 29 checkposts, six accounting teams each, 21 Video Surveillance Team (VST) and Video Viewing Team (VVT) have been formed.
In-charge Additional Deputy Commissioner Yogeeshwar was present.