KL Report
SRINAGAR
With campaigning over Monday evening, the stage is set for polling for North Kashmir Lok sabha constituency on May 07.
Elaborate arrangements have been made for smooth, free and fair polls in the constituency. On Tuesday, polling material and staff was dispatched to their destinations from distribution centers and the process concluded early afternoon. Adequate transportation and communication plans were made for the purpose, an official statement said.
“In Baramulla early Tuesday morning, District Election Officer, Dr. Farooq Ahmad Lone, who is also Returning Officer for the constituency visited all the distribution centers in the District and supervised the dispatch of polling material and staff to their destinations,” the statement said.
It said that polling parties to some remote areas like Karnah, Machil and Kumkadi in Kupwara district and Gurez, Tulail in Bandipora districts stand already dispatched.
“Even as 61 Polling Stations, comprising 37 in Sopore, 18 in Baramulla and six in Pattan Assembly segments were relocated/clustered to facilitate voters of different locations cast their votes at centrally located places without hassle, the Booth Level Officers of all the districts in the constituency have been directed to set up Election Facilitation Desks (EFDs) outside polling stations on the polling day to ensure that photo voter slips are distributed among the leftover electors, if any on spot,” it added.
“In the district 14 zonal and 109 sectoral magistrates have been designated to ensure peaceful and smooth polling in the district.”
Meanwhile, during the campaign trail political parties and candidates held series of meetings and road shows and tried to convince voters to vote for them. The use of local cultural items like music, attire and humour added pun to the campaign.
“15 candidates are in fray including candidates of National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party, BJP, Peoples Conference, Awami Ittehad Party, Panthers Party and Bahujan Samaj Party besides some independents,” the statement further said.
“11, 90, 766 voters including 6, 22,632 male and 5,66,460 female voters would be exercising their franchise across the Constituency today. This includes 5, 83,753 voters of Baramulla, 2, 11,967 voters of Bandipora and 3, 93,400 voters of Kupwara districts. There are 18,257 migrant voters included in these figures spread over the three districts of Baramulla 8307, Kupwara 8468 and Bandipora 1482,” the statement informed.
“To facilitate these voters exercise their franchise, 1616 polling booths have been set up across the constituency at 1303 locations. This includes 822 polling booths in Baramulla district, 531 polling booths in Kupwara district and 263 in Bandipora district,” it said.
Pertinently, the Election Commission of India has deputed two General Observers Mr. Murli Krishna and Mr. Pravesh Kumar, one Security Observer Mr. Maddyreddy Pratap and one Expenditure Observer Mr. Mahipal Singh to monitor free and fair polling in the constituency.
District Election Control Rooms have already been set up in all the three districts of the constituency and a round the clock Media Centre for the constituency is already operational at the DC Office, Baramulla with telephone numbers 01952-236512 and 236912, the statement maintained.
