CD of short film on voter awareness released

Mysuru:  In the backdrop of Model Code of Conduct kicking in, so far Rs.17,13,000 cash, 7,500 litres of liquor and 54 vehicles have been recovered. Besides, Rs. 8.63 crore worth of household articles and one kg gold have been seized in the district.

Disclosing this to reporters at his office here yesterday, Deputy Commissioner Darpan Jain, who is also the District Electoral Officer, said that Flying Squads and Static Surveillance Teams have been asked to be on high alert with regard to disbursal of money to woo voters and on transaction of accounts in Cooperative Societies including Milk Cooperative and Agriculture Cooperative societies.

The Income Tax and Model Code of Conduct teams have been asked to watch suspicious bank transactions of Self Help Groups (SHG), NGOs and also of money lenders and pawn brokers, he said. The Commercial Tax Department will also keep an eye on transportation of goods and if proper documentation is not found, such goods will be seized following due process, he said.

In Mugur of T. Narasipur taluk, illegally stored 1,503 litres of hard liquor and 87 litres of beer worth Rs.45 lakh have been seized. In Chamundeshwari Constituency as the Electoral Officers were on the move, they found people moving about distributing money in eight vehicles. As soon as they saw officials, they managed to escape in their vehicles, the DC said.

In all, 16,565 people have been trained to man 2,860 booths in the district. Out of this 150 booths have been identified as critical or hyper-sensitive and the voting will be webcast in these booths from the time the voting begins till it ends. This will be monitored by the Election Commission, he added.

The Electoral rolls were published on Feb.28 and Minchina Nondani (special voter enrolment drive) was also organised till Apr.4. 71,334 applications have been received out of which 8,803 were deleted, 5,813 were corrected and 1,579 were transfer applications. Another 54,689 new additions were received out of which 6,821 were deleted, 4,544 were for correction and 1,088 were for transfers, he said.

SVEEP (Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation) Nodal Officer and ZP CEO P. Shivashankar said that his department is making all efforts to see that the voters participation which was 71 percent in the last election touch 100 percent this time. A CD with cricket icon Rahul Dravid as brand ambassador and Bigg Boss fame Niveditha Gowda as District icon was also released on the occasion.

Voters Awareness signs will also come up from Apr.27 till May 11, just like the Welcome Sign is put up on Chamundi Hill during Dasara. The illuminated signboard with the message ‘Nimma Mata, Nimma Hakku’ (Your Vote Your Right) and other messages will be displayed at Chamundi Hill. The illumination will be between 7 pm and 9 pm.

In 2013 elections, the district recorded 73% turnout and 71% women participated in    the elections.

Besides, SVEEP, in association with the Police, Youth Services, Woman and Child Development and Health and Family Welfare Departments, has organised a candlelight march at K.R. Circle on Apr.24 evening, the CEO said.

Continuing, Shivashankar said: “the district, which has 11 Assembly segments, has 24.32 lakh voters, 12% more compared to previous Assembly election. The authorities concerned have conducted several rounds of awareness drive to educate the people about the Right to Vote.”

In addition, the officials also conducted a demonstration of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and as many as, 60,000 people cast their votes during the demo,         he informed.

Additional DC and Assistant District Electoral Officer T. Yogesh and SVEEP Officer Krishna were also present at the press conference.