A total of 6,199 EVM units will be required for voting in the nine assembly constituencies of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar for the November 20 polls. Accordingly, 20% of the EVM units have been kept reserved for emergencies. Therefore, 7,430 EVM units have been kept ready by the administration for the polling. Also, 4,239 VVPATs have been kept ready. The process to upload the lists with candidates’ names has been completed. The voter lists have been updated, and as many as 32,02,067 voters will exercise their franchise in the district.
The work of putting the ballot paper in the EVMs has been completed by 18 engineers of the Bharat Electrical Limited, informed Deputy District Election Returning Officer Devendra Katke. The campaigning by the candidates has been closed on Monday at 6pm. The employees and the polling booth heads have been imparted election training on two occasions. Enough EVM and VVPAT machines are available in the district. The machines have already been sent to all the nine constituencies.
The district administration had sent the proposals to the Election Commission (EC) for counting centres. The counting centre for Sillod will be the Government Industrial Training Centre, Jalgaon Highway, Sillod, Kannad; Indoor Hall, Shivaji College, Kannad, Phulambri; Garware Hitech Films Ltd, Chikalthana MIDC, Aurangabad (Central) Government Polytechnic, Railway Station Road, Osmanpura, Aurangabad (West); Government Engineering College, Railway Station Road, Aurangabad (East); Saint Francis De Sales High School, Jalna Road, Gangapur; Indoor Stadium Hall, Shri Muktanand College, Gangapur, Vaijapur; Tennis Court Hall, Vinayak Patil College, Yeola Road, Vaijapur and Paithan and Administrative Building, Santpeeth, near Jayakwadi dam, Paithan.
Two ballet units will be required in eight out of nine constituencies. In all, 183 candidates are contesting in nine constituencies. In each ballet unit, the names of 16 candidates are available. Hence, barring the Vaijapur constituency, two ballet units will be required at the polling booths in the remaining eight constituencies.
The campaigning of the candidates came to an end at 6pm on Monday. The administration is keeping a close watch on the activities of the candidates, political leaders and activists as of now.
