With 10 out of 13 parliamentary seats having more than 15 candidates trying their luck in the ballot battle, the Election Commission of India has decided to “immediately” send as many as 6,400 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to the State.
“The ECI has directed to immediately shift 6,400 EVMs to Punjab from Haryana, Odisha, NCT of Delhi and Karnataka for smooth conduct of general elections-2014 in the State,” said the State Joint Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Amit Talwar.
He said that keeping in view the number of more than 15 candidates in 10 out of 13 Parliamentary constituencies in Punjab, the ECI had been requested to provide more EVMs as in these constituencies two EVMs would be required for each polling booth.
Only three constituencies — Ferozepur, Gurdaspur and Fatehgarh Sahib — have 15 or less than 15 candidates in poll fray. On every EVM, there are 16 buttons, including the newly-included NOTA (None Of The Above) option.
“The movement of vehicles bringing EVMs to Punjab would be monitored by ECI through a software for tracking movement of EVMs on daily basis until it reaches the destination. The expenditure on packing, forwarding and transportation charges in full would be borne by the Punjab CEO,” he added.