After the Election Commission of India announced on Wednesday the long-awaited Assembly poll schedules for the poll-bound five States, including Uttarakhand, the State chief electoral officer (CEO) Radha Raturi said that 73,81,000 voters of the State would exercise their franchise on February 15, the day polling would be held. With the model code of conduct being enforced from Wednesday, Raturi said that she had issued advisory to all the principal secretaries and secretaries through the Chief Secretary to implement the model code of conduct strictly in their jurisdictional limits with immediate effect. She further said while addressing a Press conference in Dehradun that though the Election Commission of India (ECI) had already disclosed the poll schedules to the media in Delhi they had asked the CEOs of the five States concerned to address the media at their levels as well. She added that 1,300 sensitive and 680 extra sensitive polling booths are spread over 43 out of 70 Assembly constituencies of the state.
Following the poll schedule announcement and the enforcement of the model code of conduct, Chief Minister Harish Rawat cancelled his Press conference slated at2.30 pm on Wednesday.
The State CEO said that the details of the model code of conduct are available onwww.eci.nic.in. “One can refer the website for further details,” she said.
“While notification would be issued by January 20 the process of nomination would begin on the same date. last date of filing nomination is January 27 while scrutiny would be held on January 28 and the candidates can withdraw their nominations on January 30. While a single-phase polling would be held on February 15 counting of votes would be taken up on March 11,” she said.
She further said that the voters who could not have registered themselves in the voters’ list yet can register till January 17.
The model code of conduct being in force, several restrictions are imposed. For instance, the chief minister and the cabinet ministers can avail the government vehicles only to travel from their residences to offices and vice versa. However, the political appointees (daayitvadhari) would be barred from availing government vehicles till the time the model code of conduct ends. If anyone is found using the government vehicle for public rallies or other political programmes he would incur the charge of the violation of the code of conduct with EC lodging FIR against him, she said. Raturi appealed to the political parties to remove their hoardings and banners from the government buildings or public places with immediate effect while warning that in case the government officials remove them the parties would have to bear the expenses. “It is noticed that ahead of announcement of the poll schedule, political parties paint the walls of the government buildings and hang hoardings at public places. They are being advised through media to remove all publicity materials with immediate effect,” she said.She asked the people to carry relevant papers with them in case they carry more than Rs 50,000 in cash. “Maybe, they would be asked to explain why they are carrying so much cash and whence they have got them. In case they fail to explain satisfactorily the cash would be confiscated by the election commission,” she said. With the announcement, election control rooms at the state level and the district levels have come into operation. The state level office is functional from the office of chief electoral officer (CEO) and the people can lodge their queries or complaints by dialing 0135-2713757 and fax number 2713758. At the district levels, the toll free number is 1950.