TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: To encourage women to vote in the parliamentary polls in Goa, on Saturday, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office has made a special arrangement wherein two female voters will exercise their franchise after every male voter at each polling booth.
Nodal officer Durga Prasad said at a press conference held on Wednesday that 1:2 (male: female) ratio is essential to encourage women voter turnout during election.
Similarly, disabled voters and vision-impaired voters will also have easy access to cast their votes. For 30 blind voters across the state, the EC is educating them to use the electronic voting machine at a special training session which is underway from April 7 to 10.
Overall, the office of the chief electoral office at Altinho, Panjim expects at least 75 per cent voters’ turnout to conduct free, fair, peaceful and transparent elections.
Joint Election Commissioner Narayan Navti informed that the electoral office received 11 complaints till date, all of which have been disposed of.
The fresh complaint filed against Congress’ South Goa candidate Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, the office has referred the matter to south Goa Returning Officer. He has been accused of filing a false affidavit on the criminal cases against him.
Training for nearly 8925 polling staff, who have been assigned polling duty, has been completed. Armed police force as well as the central Armed police force will provide security at 1151 polling stations, 14 vulnerable and 30 critical voting stations. Several other mechanisms have been put in place at this election where a total of 1622 electronic voting machines will be used.
