Ahmedabad, 5 March 2014

Addressing a press conference in Gujarat capital today afternoon, the Chief Electoral Officer, Gujarat Anita Karwal made following announcements and shared related details:

-There shall be 27,360 polling station buildings across Gujarat. Some auxiliary polling stations could be added if needed subsequently.

-Out of total 27,360 buildings, urban areas will have 5,646 buildings while rural areas will have 21,714 buildings.

-Age group wise figures of voters are following:
18-19: 9.5 lakh voters
20-29: 1 crore
30-39: 1 crore 1 lakh
40-49: 78.7 lakh
50-59: 55.8 lakh
60-69: 32 lakh
70-79: 16 lakh
80+: 5 lakh voters

-Polling for 7 assembly seats will be held on same date. There are around 1800 polling stations in these 7 assembly seats.

-On all India level, a special camp will be held on 9th March between 10 am to 6 pm at each polling station. In Gujarat 45,312 polling stations will display the present electoral list for public view and offer form no.6 if someone wants to apply to add his/her name.

-Photo voter slip will be distributed to door-steps 3 to 7 days prior to polling date.

-Each polling station will have basic minimum facilities including drinking water, shade, ramp and toilets. Collectors are directed to carry out physical verification to ensure this.

-Each Assembly constituency will have one model polling station where signage, direction maps etc additional facilities will be provided.

-There shall be four types of teams for this purpose: flying squad, video surveillance team, video viewing teams and accounting teams.

-Static surveillance teams will be put on roads and highways only after notification for elections is issued.

-As per the rule, candidates will need to open special account and poll related expenditure will need to be done only through cheques using that particular account. The limit of expenditure is Rs. 70 lakh foe each candidate.

-There are 10% low voter turnout polling stations.

-The election commission will start two phone helplines; one would be about electoral list which will be chargeable, while the other will be for registering complains regarding model code of conduct which will be toll free. The details of district wise helplines will be put on website soon. Nationally, a helpline number 1950 is already functional.

-The Election commission has selected Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, cricketer Dhony, sports star Saina Nehwal and Marry com as national level icons. At state level, sports persons Cheteshwar Pujara and Ankita Raina are selected in Gujarat. One or two more names will be declared soon.

-State level nodal officers appointed are: Ashiwni Kumar, Ashish Bhatia(on police side), Vinod Tanwani(Income Tax nodal officer), and Raghvendra Vatsa(SMS monitoring).

-SMS monitoring system will be put in place at polling booths with the help of which, polling figure will be conveyed to election commission office every two hours.

-It is not yet clear that how many companies will come to the state from outside for elections, but other measures like web casting, micro observers(central govt an non-state govt officers on polling booths) and video graphy etc are to be taken.

-20 to 22% booths are identified as critical and vulnerable. This figure may go up-down in future. Government officials will visit such areas for confidence building purposes.

-After they file their nominations, the accounts of candidates are checked thrice. Summary of account on all three occasions will be scanned and put on website.

-There has been a change in expenditure monitoring guideline. When EC team will find some political workers/candidate/leader possessing more than Rs. 50,000 in cash or a gift worth Rs. 10,000 or more, and if there’s doubt that it is something poll related then the election commission will proceed against them.

-Banners and hoardings of political parties will be removed in 48-72 hours period as the model code of conduct is effective now.

-For the first time the election commission in Gujarat will go to social media platforms for awareness campaign. Social media platforms like Youtube, Whatsapp, Facebook shall be used. we Twitter is still being examined. Content will be updated almost on daily basis.

-Voter education interventions on the sideline of Holi etc will be carried out with the help of district collectors.