Election process set in motion in Mysore

The process for election from the Mysore Parliamentary constituency has been set in motion with the issuance of the official notification today.

According to the notification issued by deputy commissioner and district election officer P Manivannan, the last date for filing of nominations, which opened today, is 3 pm on April 9. Nomination papers will be received from 11 am to 3 pm on all working days, except on government holidays. Scrutiny of nominations will be on April 11 and the last date for withdrawal is April 13. Polling will take place on April 30 from 7 am to 5 pm. The counting of votes will be on May 16.

All taluks of Mysore district have been connected on the wireless network and the central control room has been established at the Mysore City Corporation, Mysore. The control room works round the clock and monitors the election process.

The sector officers have been provided with vehicles fitted with wireless to oversee the strict observance of the model code of conduct and to supervise the poll process on the day of polling. Helplines have been set up at district and taluk control rooms and notified for providing emergency help the public and officers on election duty.

Besides this, the police communication networking will take care of orderly conduct of election process. In any eventuality, the officers on election duty will reach the spot at the shortest time possible.

Manivannan said on Wednesday there has been a tremendous progress in the coverage of photo identity card, which has increased from 66.02 per cent to 79.49 per cent after the drive was launched last month. This is expected to increase further as an additional 33,000 Form 6 submitted by the people for inclusion in the revised voters’ list were pending with the authorities. So far, EPICs had been issued to 1,487,717 voters out of 2,585,717 registered voters in Mysore. EPICs will be issued until April 15. The progress was highest in the Periyapatana Assembly segment where the coverage was 93.57 per cent. Of the 150,867 voters, 130,271 had been issued EPICs. The least coverage was in the Narasimharaja Assembly segment in Mysore.

The authorities have booked 642 cases for violation of poll code until March 31. Of them, 444 cases were booked in Mysore city and 99 each in Mysore rural and Kodagu, Manivannan added.

Mysore Police Superintendent Ramsubbu launched a website www.mysoreelections.com, which comprises all the information relating to the Mysore elections, including voters’ list of Mysore, Madikeri and Virajpet. Hosted by IT entrepreneur Sanjay, it will have pages in Kannada too. It has a video display of the electronic voting machine, narrating its mechanism and use.

Releasing a camera, Deputy Commissioner of Police V S D’Souza said 150 such cameras had been purchased to keep an eye on the election process and the candidates.