Dispur: All preparations are afoot for the smooth conduct of Lok Sabha Election-2024 Assam. The office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Assam has completed all arrangements for the conduct of the ensuing Lok Sabha Election in a free, fair, safe and peaceful manner. To keep a strong vigil on law and order, expenditure etc., the Election Commission of India has already appointed Election Observers.
As a major push for conducting free and fair elections, live monitoring and webcasting has been arranged by the CEO, Assam for monitoring of poll day proceedings as per ECI’s direction. The total number of Polling Stations for Phase 1 are 10001 out of which 92 are model polling stations, 11 are PwD managed polling stations and 752 are female managed polling stations. Webcasting will be done in all the 5509 polling stations. Through webcasting, Election Commission of India, Chief Electoral Officer and District Election Officers will be able to monitor the polling process at the polling station live on the polling day.
Assured Minimum Facilities (AMF) like provision for drinking water, adequate furniture, waiting shed, toilet, adequate arrangement for lighting, provision for creche for children, proper signage, provision for ramp to facilitate the PwD voters and senior citizen electors and display of voter facilitation posters are made available at all the polling stations.
Arrangements like transport facility for elderly people, assistance from volunteers along with wheelchairs to PwDs electors and senior citizens voters are arranged at the polling stations. It may be mentioned here that Mobile app-Saksham may be used by the PwD voters for opting transportation by registering online. Moreover, other IT applications like Voter Helpline App, KYC-ECI App, c VIGIL app and Election Helpline no. Call 1950 are available for the benefit of the voters.
During this Lok Sabha Election-2024, a total of 40004 Polling and Presiding officers will be engaged and a total of 10001 Ballot Units (BUs), 10001 Control Unit (CUs) and 10001 VVPATs will be used. The Commission has also deputed Micro-Observers for critical polling stations. The Mock Poll shall start 90 mins before the commencement of poll.
In total, 35 candidates are in fray for polls for 5 HPCs namely 10-Kaziranga,11-Sonitpur,12-Lakhimpur,13-Dibrugarh and 14-Jorhat in Phase 1. There are a total 8647869 electors in the constituencies. Out of these, 4282887 are Male electors, 4364859 are Female electors and 123 are third gender.
Moreover, to ensure an inclusive election, the option of postal ballot facility is extended to the senior citizens above the age of 85 years, PwDs, in addition to the persons employed in essential services.
It may be mentioned that various awareness campaign under SVEEP with State icons Deepjyoti Keot, Siddhartha Sarma, PwD icon Rakesh Banik and SHGs of ASRLM etc. have been carried out to urge the voters to come out and cast their votes and be a part of the largest democracy. The time for poll starts at 7 am and ends at 5 pm.
Chief Electoral Officer, Anurag Goel urges all concerned to cast their vote in the ensuing Lok Sabha Election-2024.
