Mangalore, Mar 8: With the entire country gearing up for the Lok Sabha elections scheduled to be held on April 17 in Karnataka, a special drive will be undertaken by the election department of Dakshina Kannada district administration on Sunday to encourage eligible electorates from enrolling themselves in the electoral list.
Issuing guidelines regarding the Lok Sabha 2014 polls in a press conference here on Saturday, Deputy Commissioner and District Election Officer A B Ibrahim said that the special drive would be conducted on Sunday, March 9 for the enrollment of eligible voters at their respective polling booths by Booth Level Officer (BLO). A series of special camps will be conducted in all 1766 polling booths in the district as part of the drive, with a focus on young voters and first-timers, he said, adding that the registration rate of young voters was very low at one percent.
The deputy commissioner also appealed to all the EPIC card holders in the district to check out their names in the electoral rolls for necessary corrective measures during these drives. He said that the enrollment process of persons whose names were missing from the voters ' list would continue till March 26.
Mr Ibrahim, who is also the returning officer, said that the district election department had set up a toll-free number for complaints related to violation of moral code of conduct in the district. Citizens can call the round-the-clock toll-free number 1077 to complain any violation during elections, he said.
This time, the election expenses limit for each candidate contesting in a constituency has been raised to Rs 70 lakhs. To monitor the election code of conduct violations that may occur during elections, a total of 24 sectoral magistrates, 24 flying squads, 24 video surveillance teams, eight video viewing teams, 24 static surveillance teams and 175 sector officers have been appointed, said DK zilla panchayat CEO Tulasi Maddineni.
To check the practice of paid news, the Election Commission has appointed Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) at the district level, headed by the district election officer and returning officer, which will scrutinise all media within its jurisdiction to identify political advertisement in the garb of news, she said.
Important dates for elections
The elections will be notified on March 19, while March 26 has been fixed as the last date for filing nomination papers of candidates for the Dakshina Kannada Parliamentary constituency. The scrutinisation of the nomination papers will be held on March 27, while March 29 will be the last date for withdrawal of the nominations.
The district has a total of 1766 polling booths out of which, 442 booths have been identified as sensitive and 218 as hyper-sensitive.
The moral code of conduct is already in place from March 5 when the elections were announced.
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