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Today Date : Friday, March 29, 2024

Election Commission has intensified measures to prevent cash distribution

Election Commission has intensified measures to prevent cash distribution

As the date scheduled for the state assembly election approaches, the election commission has intensified the monitoring measures to prevent distribution of cash to the voters.
The election would take place in a single-phase manner for all the 224 constituencies on May 10. As many as 2,615 candidates have nominated to contest in the election. 
As the election is just 13 days away, political parties have intensified their campaigning across the state. As a result, the election commission has also intensified its monitoring activities to prevent distribution of cash to the voters. As a part of it, the poll officers have intensified the vehicle checking across the state.
Speaking to reporters, the state chief election officer Manoj Kumar Meena said, “The announcement regarding the state election commission was made on March 29 and the model code of conduct has been implemented in the state. Since then, flying squads have been deployed and we have set up several temporary check posts to check the vehicles. 
So far, we have seized cash worth Rs 88.03 crore, gift items worth Rs 20.62 crore, liquor worth Rs 59.92 crore, narcotic items worth Rs 17.14 crore, gold jewels worth Rs 75.15 crore and silver jewels worth Rs 4.32 crore. The total value of seized items is Rs 265.20 crore and 2,036 cases were filed.”  He said that about 673 cases were filed against individuals for violating election norms. 
More number of candidates have filed nominations at Ballari Nagar, Osakottai, Chitradurga, Elanganga constituencies and constituencies like Yamaganamarady, Devadurga, Thirthahalli, Kunthapura, Gabu, Mangaluru and Bandwal have lesser number of candidates in the fray, he added.
The draft electoral roll was released in January and then time was given till April 20 to make changes or include names in the electoral roll, he said, adding that as many as 16.4 lakh names of new voters were added in the list. With this, the total number of voters in the state has gone up to 5,31,33,054. Total number of male voters is 2.67 crore, female voters is 2.64 lakh and transgender voters is 4,927,” he said.
The number of first-time voters is 11,71,558, voters aged above 80 years are 12,15,920 and NRI voters is 3,048, he said, adding that the number of poll officers required for election duty is 2,79,752 and they have officers in excess number in hand. Similarly, the EVMs are also in excess, he added. 
During the press meet, he was accompanied by additional chief election officers Rajendra Chozhan and Venkatesh Kumar.