First ten voters in each polling station to be feted: Kamrup (M) DC

‘All polling stations will be on ground floors so as to make them friendly for differently-abled and older voters’

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 5: Kamrup (M) Deputy Commissioner and District Election Officer (DEO) M Angamuthu has said that apart from the use of Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) in all the four Legislative Assembly Constituencies (LACs) in Kamrup Metro, the district will have as many as eight model polling stations. The first ten voters in each polling station in the district will be felicitated with a citation and a memento each so as to bring about awareness among voters.

Talking to newsmen in the city today, Angamuthu said: “The total voters in the district are 10,00,797 this time around – 5,07,586 males and 4,93,211 females. Dispur with 3.53 lakh voters is the LAC with the highest number of voters in the State. In all, the entire district will have as many as 1,112 polling stations, including 255 sensitive and 100 very sensitive ones. The break-up of the polling stations is 375 in Dispur LAC, 212 in Jalukbari LAC, 240 in Guwahati East LAC and 285 in Guwahati West LAC. The eight model polling stations will have facilities like separate reception counters and voting rooms for male and female voters, drinking water, CCTV cameras, video cameras, micro-observers, continuous inspection, etc. To make that happen, the district administration has drawn a district election magement plan, prepared an exclusive telephone directory including mes and phone numbers of polling booth officers, a whatsapp number, a toll-free number, etc. The plan will soon be uploaded in the website of the district administration.”

Angamuthu said: “The four LACs have been divided into 95 sectors, and each sector will be under the supervision of an officer with magisterial power. As many as 7,500 polling personnel will be engaged in the four LACs.” According to the DC, the turnout in the Guwahati parliamentary constituency in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls was 74 per cent, which is much low for a metropolitan city. “In order to bring about awareness among the voters, especially the first-time voters and females, stickers with an appeal to voters to cast their votes will be circulated in the district. Such stickers will be sent to households along with LPG cylinders. This apart, some voter awareness programmes will be held in the district.”

In order to make voting facilities disabled-friendly, all polling booths, according to the DC, will only be on ground floors.

The DC appealed to all concerned to observe the poll code of conduct strictly. “Posters in public buildings and places are banned. In the event of any poster on any private place or building, the posters should make mention of the candidate’s me, his party and the me of the printer,” he said.