the goan I network
PANAJI
With campaigning coming to a close at 5 pm on Sunday, Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer Kunal (IAS) said the over 8000 election duty staff are geared up to ensure polling between 7 am to 6 pm on Tuesday for the parliamentary seats as well as three vacant assembly seats goes on unblemished.
Addressing the media on Sunday, Kunal said he is expecting the voter turnout to beat all previous records in Goa and cross the 80 per cent mark with various special voter awareness campaigns conducted through the month of April and earlier.
Goa goes to the polls in the third phase of the nation-wide parliamentary polls on Tuesday. Besides the two MPs for North Goa and South Goa seats, Goans will also be voting to elect three MLAs in Mandrem, Mapusa and Shiroda assembly constituencies.
A total of 11,35,811 voters are eligible to cast their votes in Goa.
CEO Kunal and his team has also walked the extra mile to ensure that it will be one of the most accessible election for the differently-abled voters. Every polling station will have at least two volunteers to provide assistance to the voters with disability.
Also, pick-up and drop facility will be provided to voters who need it, particularly the differently abled, senior citizens and even pregnant women through the block level officers and other poll personnel.
Meanwhile, there have been no instances of voters finding their names deleted from the electoral rolls as was the case in many other parts of the country as the process for deletion of voters was stopped more than two months ago, Kunal said.
“We have stopped processing deletion of voters for more than two months now,” Kunal said, when asked whether there were any complaints of names missing from the rolls.
Kunal also said that Sector Officers will be equipped with ‘reserved EVM/VVPATs’ in case of malfunction in the machines provided at the polling stations.
“All sector officers’ vehicles carrying reserved EVMs/VVPATs will be fitted with GPS tracking devices and their movement from the time of receipt of the machines to the time of deposition back at the respective centres will be tracked and monitored centrally at the district election officer and Chief Electoral Officer level,” he said.
Also, web casting will be done at all the 1,652 polling stations in the State.
Record seizure
of cash, liquor
PANAJI: Police, Income-Tax and other revenue agencies have seized Rs 11.64 crore worth of cash, liquor, narcotic drugs and other contraband in the period that the model code of conduct was in force in Goa. >> See pg 3
