Election Commission team to arrive in Karnataka today

An Election Commission team, including three Deputy Election Commissioners, will reach Karnataka today to review preparations for the ensuing Karnataka Assembly elections.

Bangalore, Apr 8 : An Election Commission team, including three Deputy Election Commissioners, will reach Karnataka today to review preparations for the ensuing Karnataka Assembly elections.

During their visit, EC officials will undertake district-wise review of 89 constituencies going for polls on May 10. The polling will be also held on 16 and 22. The counting of votes will take place on May 25.

Besides reviewing aspects of election management with the Chief Electoral Officer, the team will meet civil and police officials and returning officers of various districts.

Recently, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N. Gopalaswami along with his two Election Commissioners Dr. S Y Qureshi and Navin Chawla, visited the state to take stock of the situation ahead of the polls.

There are around 40,077,666 electors of which 20,399,338 are male and 19,678,328 female.

The EC has planned to set up 39,758 polling stations in the state, besides, the District Election Officers (DEO) have been authorized to propose setting up of auxiliary polling stations wherever needed for voters' convenience.

For the facility of disabled persons, instructions have been issued to ensure that all polling stations are located at ground floor and ramps are provided for the disabled.

As many as 36 seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC), and 15 for Scheduled Tribes (ST).

The notification for the first phase of polls will be issued on April 16 and the last date of filing of nominations will be April 23. Scrutiny will be done the next day and last date of withdrawal will be April 26.

For the second phase, nominations will begin on April 22 and will end on April 29 followed by scrutiny the next day. The last date for withdrawal of nominations will be May 2.

Nominations in the final phase will begin on April 26 and the last date for nominations will be May 3. Scrutiny will take place on May 5 and the last date for withdrawal will be May 7.

Karnataka came under President's rule in November last year after the collapse of the BJP-JDS coalition Government.

ANI