More than 1.18 crore voters will exercise their franchise during the third and final phase of polling in the remaining seven lok Sabha constituencies in Chhattisgarh which go to polls on April 24.
The seven constituencies are—Raipur, Bilaspur, Durg, Surguja, Janjgir-Champa, Korba and Raigarh. “The number of polling stations in Chhattisgarh for the last phase of polls is 14,474 in the seven lok Sabha constituencies, spread across 14 districts comprising a total of 58 Assembly segments,” Chhattisgarh’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sunil Kujur said while addressing a news conference here, even as campaigning by candidates ended at 5 pm.
He said that there are a total of 153 candidates in the fray in the seven lok Sabha constituencies out of which 15 are women. The total number of voters in the seven lok Sabha constituencies are 118,10,256 out of which 60,31,735 are male and 57,72,750 are female besides 1,340 other voters and 4,431 service voters.
There are 3,283 polling centres which had been declared as ‘critical’ , he said . The term ‘critical’ has been classified by the Commission as those polling stations which have a high vulnerability to getting influenced by the candidates in terms of expenditure. There are 4,355 ‘Micro Observers’, 9 ‘Expenditure Observers’, 7 ‘Common Observers’ and 58 ‘Assistant Expenditure Observers’ deployed for the conduct of polls in the final phase in Chhattisgarh, Kujur informed.
This apart, EVMs comprising a total of 15,921 control units and 29,947 ballot units would be used for the conduct of polls. like the first and second phase of polls in Chhattisgarh, a total of 200 cameras would be used in the polling stations for live webcast of polling in various constituencies, he said.
Moreover, the Election Commission has deployed 350 video cameras and 6,000 digital cameras to monitor polling activity in the constituencies, Kujur said.There are 1,298 ‘Sector Magistrates’ appointed besides 174 flying squad teams and 174 ‘static surveillance teams’ currently keeping vigil round-the-clock, he said. A total of 71,679 officials are currently on poll duty. The are 11,796380 ‘Image cards’ and 11,78,4574 EPIC cards issued to voters for the polls, Kujur said.