After poll schedule for five States, including Uttar Pradesh, were announced by Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi on Wednesday, Ghaziabad District Magistrate (DM) announced the preparations by the district administration to conduct peaceful election of the five Assembly seats of Ghaziabad district and partly one Assembly constituency of Dhaulana of the adjoining Hapur district on February 11 during the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Assembly polls.
The DM and the returning officer Nidhi Kesarwani said there are 25, 92, 726 voters in Ghaziabad out of which male voters are 14, 60, 359 while the female voters are 11, 32, 325.
For the smooth conduct of the election a 24 hours operational control room has been established to monitor any untoward incident, she said.
During elections, the candidate would be allowed to pay the election expenses up to `20,000 cash. No cash transaction would be allowed above this limit, the DM said. Further the candidate will not be allowed to carry above `50, 000 in cash, she added.
In case the cash is recovered, the explanation by the concern department would be sought. The maximum limit of the expenditure has been fixed at `28 lakh for an assembly constituency.
The district administration has launched voter verification paper audit trail(VV PAT) for the first time in the Ghaziabad city constituency.
The staff has been trained to develop their skill at the micro level.
Suvidha and Samadhan are two applications which have been introduced by the election commission. The employees are being trained to handle those applications.
Since the model code of conduct has been enforced immediately after the announcement, necessary actions have been initiated to remove all the hoardings and banners being displayed till now. To make the staff more skilled, the award of certification has been introduced in the district as well. In this election, the heights of voting cabinet and the table have been escalated to 30 inches to protect the secrecy of the voting, she said. The service voters would be asked to download the voter form online and would be required to fill and send it by post to the returning officer.
In view of maintaining peace during election 15711 weapon license holders are being asked to deposit their weapons with the police lines on in a police station.
Speaking on this occasion, Ghaziabad SSP Deepak Kumar said 149 vulnerable persons have been identified. So police are keeping a close watch on the character and the conduct of the contesting candidates.