PUNE: District Collector Naval Kishore Ram on Sunday said the Lok Sabha elections in Pune and Baramati constituencies will be held on April 23 and Maval and Shirur constituencies on April 29.
He was addressing a press meet after the Election Commission announced that the Lok Sabha election will be held in 7 phases. “As the Election Commission has declared the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) it will come into effect from now on. We have the responsibility of four constituencies including Pune (34), Shirur (36), Baramati (35) and Maval (33). In all there are 20.24 lakh voters in Pune, 20.77 lakh in Baramati, 21.11 lakh in Shirur and 22.27 in Maval. There are 8,879 polling stations under us, of which about 7,666 polling stations are in Pune district and 1,213 in Raigad district. Apart from training of polling personnel we have almost finished our preparation for the election,” added Ram.
He said all government officials, citizens and politicians should be aware of the MCC. “No new government schemes can be launched. Similarly no development work orders can be placed. Similarly, transfer and promotions of government servants will be frozen unless allowed by the Election Commission of India (ECI). We are in touch with the ECI to sort out the issue of distribution of drought funds,” added Ram.
He said 63 flying squads, 63 static squads and 41 checkpoints have been formed to check for violations of MCC. “Citizens can report any incident of violation of MCC through CVigil mobile application. We have also started an SMS alert facility for polling personnel. In case something goes wrong, the polling personnel can alert us immediately. We will be tracing vehicles involved in election process through GPS and about 1,000 polling stations are equipped with web casting facility,” added Ram.
Ram said the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) will keep a watch on all types of media including social media to track paid news. “Once the nominations are declared, we will take details of all social media accounts of the representatives so that we can track them,” added Ram.
Superintendent of Police (Rural) Sandip Patil said 13 checkpoints have been created to check flow of liquor, cash and weapons. “Except for banks, we will seize weapons from licence holders. There are about 3,822 such weapon holders and about 80 per cent of the weapons will be seized during the election period. We have planned action against 5,616 persons who can create law and order problems during the election and the proposal for the same are with concerned authorities. We will have platoons from SRPF, CRPF, Home Guards and other forces on election duty. As the elections are in phases there would not be shortage of workforce,” added Patil.
Mitesh Ghatte, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Branch said 122 persons were arrested by the city police in liquor-related cases and 22 were arrested in arms-related cases. “The process of preventive action and externment is under process,” added Ghatte.
Speaking on prevention of cash flow and tracking people’s bank accounts during the election period, Ram said a meeting with bank officials, Income-Tax Department and other officials was held recently. “The flying squads and static squads will be vigilant to track the flow of cash during election period. If the cash is above Rs 10 lakh, the Income Tax Department will investigate such cases. Similarly, the bank will be checking for suspicious transactions in bank accounts of people during the election period. A team of seven persons will be keeping a watch on social media for violation of MCC,” added Ram.
PUNE VOTERS
- Total voters in Pune: 73,63,812
- Male voters: 38,51,445
- Female voters: 35,12,228
- Third gender voters: 139
- Voters in 18-19 years age group: 54,115
CONTACT
- Voters helpline number: 1950
- Complaint mobile application: Cvigil
