Bengaluru: Ahead of assembly elections in Karnataka slated to be held on May 12, the Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat and his team paid a visit to the state to oversee the preparations going on. The delegation met the representatives of various political parties who were reportedly concerned over the alleged partisan officials to the more complicated procedure to obtain permission for rallies and loudspeakers.

Due to the election atmosphere, the state has been under the Model Code of Conduct and violation of the poll code may see immediate action, Mr Rawat had warned.

The officials had, in a raid, seized over Rs. 2 crore in cash, liquor of worth about Rs. 23.76 lakh, drugs and narcotics worth Rs. 19.37 lakh and also 2.464 kg of gold and other freebies such as laptops and other household items worth Rs. 3.7 crore.

The Income Tax (I-T) Department has started a toll-free number along with mobile and landline number to enable people to register complaints about dubious spending. Apart from that, the I-T officials will also keep a watch over the election expenditure. There will be five airports across the state and will also have Air Intelligence Units from the I-T department and other major railway stations will be kept under monitoring for cash movement. These arrangements will be handed to the Railway Protection Force (RPF).

To ensure that TV news channels of political parties don’t give too much publicity to their own candidates, these media agencies need to be kept under check. Several concerns were also raised that government appointed heads of boards and corporations were still using official staff and vehicles in violation of the code of conduct.

Voter registration camps will be ready there to start work at all booths tomorrow. The total number of first-time voters has increased from 7 lakh to 15 lakh this time. And Mr Rawat appreciated the work done by the state to involve more and more young voters. The commissioner was also given some suggestions that major shopping malls and places of entertainment should be closed down on the voting day to increase voter participation.

He also reiterated the view held by the Commission that a single candidate should not contest more than one seat. A suggestion to organize separate booths at housing communities on the outskirts of the cities which had more than 400 flats was also under consideration by the Commission.

There are a total of 224 assembly constituencies, among which 173 are general, 36 reserved for Scheduled Castes and 15 for Scheduled Tribes.

The total numbers of the electorate stand at 496.85 of which 251.59 lakh are male and 244.76 lakh are female voters. The numbers have gone up from the earlier 436.85 lakhs in the 2013 elections.

EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) will be used in all 58,546 polling stations. And VVPATs, or Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails, will allow electorate to make sure the vote has been registered properly.

The counting of votes will be done on May 5.

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