Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Electoral Officer Mr Teeka Ram Meena on Saturday said all arrangements have been completed for the smooth polling for the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state on April 23.
The active campaigning for the polls will end on Sunday at 6 pm. The total number of electorate who are eligible to vote in the Lok Sabha polls in the state are 2,61,51, 534. Of these 1,34,66,521 are female voters and 1,26,84,839 male voters. The state has 174 transgender voters this time.
The highest number of voters are in Malappuram district at 31,36,191 and the lowest number in Wayanad district 5,94, 177. The number of first time voters in the state stood at 2,88,191 and 1,35,357 voters with disability.
Two Braille sample ballot papers will be available in each booth. There are 24,970 poling stations. Kuttiyadi, Alathur and Kunnaman-galam will have auxiliary polling booths.
Malappuram district has the highest number of polling booths – 2750 and the lowest number in Wayanad – 575. There will be 867 model polling stations. The number of all women polling booths are 240.
Election Commission has made arrangements for web casting in 3621 polling sensitive booths. The state has 35, 193 EVMs, 32,746 control units and 44,427 ballot units.
Attingal, Wayanad and Thiruvananthpauram constituency will have two ballot units each in view of the high number of candidates. Of the total of 227 candidates in the fray, 23 are women. Kannur has the highest number of women candidates at five. CEO said the green protocol was implemented strictly since March 11 and as a result 15 lakh banners, posters,flex boards and hoardings were destroyed. The commission received 51,000 complaints on the C Vigil App.
The state has 831 vulnerable polling booths, 359 critical booths, 219 booths facing Left wing extremist threat. Of these 72 booths are in Wayanad, 67 in Malappuram, 39 in Kannur and 41 in Kozhikode.
The CEO has deployed 1,01,140 officials for carrying out the poll duties in the state. These include 1670 sectoral officers , 33,710 presiding officers . The poling on April 23 will be between 7 am and 6 pm. The mock polling in each polling station will be held at 6 am and only after clearance certificate the actual polling will begin.
The CEO said in the checking and surprise raids conducted across the state so far materials worth `31 crore had been seized. Liquor worth `44 lakh, drugs and narcotics worth `21 crore, `3 cr gold and `6.63 crore in cash . The checking will be intensified further in the run up to the polls.
There will be 55 counting centers in the state. The EVMs, ballot units, control units, VVPAT will be kept in 257 strong rooms across the state. Three tier security has been put in place for the strong rooms. As many as 12 companies of central paramilitary forces will be deployed for strong rooms. The CEO has requested for five more companies to strengthen the security.
In each Legislative Assembly constituency five VVPAT machines will be counted. Since the final results will be declared only after counting VVPAT, there could be a delay in the declaration. There will be 2310 counting supervisors across the state.
The CEO said the government had already declared public holiday on April 23. Since many students are staying away from their native places, the government has declared a holiday for all educational institutions on April 22 as well.
