Bengaluru: Fourteen parliamentary constituencies in South Karnataka, including the four seats in Bengaluru will go to polls on April 18, while the remaining 14 constituencies in North Karnataka will go to polls on April 23.
Speaking to reporters here on Sunday soon after the Election Commission announced the poll schedule for the Lok Sabha elections, Karnataka Election Commissioner Mr Sanjiv Kumar said that the notification for South Karnataka will be issued on March 19 while the last day for filing nominations will be March 26. Nomination papers will be scrutinised on March 27 and the last day for withdrawal of nominations will be March 29.
For the 14 constituencies of North Karnataka, the Election Commission will issue the notification on March 28 and the last date for filing nominations will be April 4. The scrutiny will take place on April 5, while the last date for withdrawal will be April 8.
For the current election, over 8.25 lakh new voters have registered themselves. In total, there are 5,03,46,721 voters- 2.54 crore male and 2.48 crore female voters and 4,718 other voters.
The Election Commission has issued Voter ID cards to all voters, said Mr Kumar who however made it clear that EPIC card will not be mandatory for voters. Any person whose name is in the voter's list can use any of the 11 notified photo ID cards to cast their votes.
The number of polling stations has gone up from 54,265 to 58,186 this time. There will be over 600 all women managed poll stations and 28 polling stations specially established for the disabled.
This time, candidates will have to furnish additional details sought in Form 26, which was not there during the 2014 parliament elections.
The Election Commission had banned use of polythene for campaigning, as a 'go green' measure.
The Commission has also set up a toll free telephone facility: 1950 to enable the public register complaints regarding malpractices or obtain clarifications.
The C-Vigil application can be used to inform the authorities about election malpractices and action will be initiated within 100 minutes of receiving the complaint, Mr Sanjiv Kumar added.
The election expenditure limit for candidates continues to be Rs 70 lakh per constituency and both candidates and political parties will have to file the expenditure details with the Election Commission.
