Chief Electoral Officer Anupam Rajan has said that the Model Code of Conduct has come into force in Madhya Pradesh from today with the announcement of elections.
According to the election schedule released by the Election Commission of India, voting will be held on November 17 and counting of votes will take place on December 03. Election notification will be issued on October 21 and nomination papers can be submitted till October 30. Scrutiny of applications will take place on October 31 and the final list of candidates will be released along with withdrawal of nominations on November 2.
In the state, 5 crore 60 lakh 60 thousand 925 voters are enrolled in the photo electoral roll. In this, the number of male voters is 2 crore 88 lakh 25 thousand 607 while the number of female voters is 2 crore 72 lakh 33 thousand 945. Third gender voters are one thousand 373. Voting will be held at 64 thousand 523 polling booth in the state. 16 thousand 763 polling stations have been set up in urban areas and 47 thousand 760 polling stations have been set up in rural areas. Facilities like toilet, ramp, wheel chair, water, helpdesk, electricity etc. have been provided at each polling centre.
Polling stations for senior citizens and physically handicapped (PWD) voters have been set up on the ground floor. They have also been given the facility to vote from home (postal ballot). Such voters will have to fill Form 12D.
Rajan said that the use of loudspeakers will be completely banned in the state from 10 pm to 6 am. From today onwards, a team of public relations officers will keep a 24-hour vigil in Nirvachan Sadan to monitor the advertisements and news broadcast on news channels by the State Level Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC).
Under the Madhya Pradesh Defacement of Property Act, instructions have been given to take action within prescribed limits to remove unauthorised defacement on government/ public/private property. With the constitution of the teams, interstate checkpoints, illegal liquor, cash etc. are being monitored in the state.
A 2 minute video and photo can be downloaded in GPS based C Vigil app of the Election Commission of India. Any citizen will be able to send a complaint to the Commission through the app. During the elections, observers will keep an eye on the entire election process, including general observers, police and expenditure observers who will continuously monitor the whole poll process.
Even after the final publication of the voter list, eligible citizens can get their names added to the voter list. Applications for adding names to the voter list can be obtained from citizens till 10 days before the last date for filing nomination papers. By following the prescribed procedure, eligible citizens will be able to get their names added as voters in the voter list.
