Bengaluru, Apr 11 : In compliance with the recent Supreme Court order, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will install five VVPAT machines in each of the 28 Assembly seats in the City where the first phase of the polling is slated for April 18, BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad told UNI.
In an exclusive interview to UNI here on Thursday, he said that ?as many as 140 VVPAT machines will be installed in 28 Assembly seats which comes under the BBMP region?, in the city. The selection of polling stations where the VVPAT machines have to be installed will be done on random basis?.
Stating that conducting a free and fair elections within the BBMP region is a challenging task, Prasad said that ?BBMP will have more than 8900 polling stations in which more than 90 lakh voters are registered. There are 2.40 lakh voters added as compared to the 2018 Assembly elections?.
?While 24 Assembly segments comes under Bengaluru Central, Bengaluru North and Bengaluru South Lok Sabha segments, BBMP also have three Assembly segments, which comes under the Bengaluru Rural and one Assembly seat attached to the Chikkaballapura Lok Sabha constituency? he added.
He said that for the first time in the country, the Election Commission have decided to supply M-3 Electronic Voting Machines, an upgraded version of the M-2 EVMs, in the Bengaluru Central Parliamentary Constituency.
?In the last Lok Sabha elections, in only one Polling station, the M-3 machines had been used to facilitate voting in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha segment? he added.
?With more than 90 lakh voters, who were eligible to cast their votes for the April-18 Lok Sabha elections, increasing polling per cent, is the next challenge task before us? the BBMP Commissioner said.
Stating that more than 8000 staff had been pressed into create awareness among the voters to exercise their franchise, he said that in 2014 LS election about 52 per cent of polling was recorded and it increased slightly by 3 per cent in May 2018 Assembly poll.
?This time we are making best efforts to record higher per centage of polling as compared to the previous elections. volunteers have already visited over 20 lakh eligible voters, personally and motivated them to visit the Polling station and cast their votes? he said.
Replying to a question, the BBMP Commissioner said that for the first time the voter slips, which would be delivered to the houses, by the BBMP volunteers, would contain details of Polling stations, facilities available there and also Map for the easy location of the polling booth.
?Compared to last elections, as many as 320 more polling stations were added for April-18 General elections? Manjunath Prasad added.
