7 CAPF companies for Darjeeling to ensure peaceful polling

EOI, DARJEELING, 17 MARCH 2024 : The Darjeeling district administration on Sunday said preparations for the ensuing LokSabha election were in full swing, with training of polling officials and the deployment of seven companies of the Central  Armed Police Force to ensure peaceful voting. 

Polling will be held for the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat in the second phase on April 26, with filing of nominations of candidates to start from March28.

“The gazette notification will be out on March 28 when the filing of nominations will also start. This will continue till April 4 and the scrutiny of the nominations to be done on April5 and the last day of withdrawal on April 8. 

 The counting is scheduled to be held on June 4,with the process of elections tobe completed before June 6,”Darjeeling District Magistrate Prity Goyel said on Sunday. 

In the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat there are seven assembly constituencies, five of them being in the Darjeeling district, Chopra in the Uttar Dinajpur district and Kalimpong in Kalimpong district. This time round the number of total voters for Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat is 1,753, 699. Of them, 878,148 are male electors and 875,509 are female electors and 42 third gender voters. 

The Darjeeling District Magistrate said there would be1999 polling stations in the Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency, among the 410 in urban areas and 1,589 in rural areas. “Absentee voters will be voting through postal ballots. There are 13,326 PwD electors and 10,629 who are in the age of 85 plus. They will be given an option. We will give them a form where they will express their willingness if they want to come to polling stations or whether they want to vote through postal ballot staying at their home. We will be arranging wheelchairs for those who want to come to polling stations and have disabilities,” said Goyel .

For the 11,197 service voters electronic transmitted postal ballots would be issued on the day the list of candidates was finalized. 

The Darjeeling District Magistrate also said the process for training of officers involved in the election had started, with a training session of polling personnel also to be held soon. She also said that the Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activity was also going on in full swing. She hoped that this time there will be greater voter turnout than the last polls. 

“We have formed 152 teams for Model Code of Conduct and139 teams for C-vigil. For expenditure monitoring we have formed 57 Flying Surveillance Teams, 65 for Static Surveillance Teams, 46 for Video Surveillance Teams and accounting teams. We have formed complaint helpline numbers and a toll-free number of 1950 which will be working from the district headquarter of Darjeeling,” said Goyel. 

The Dispersion Centre and Receipt Centre (DCRC) for Kalimpong will be the Scottish University of Mission Institute and for Darjeeling it will be the Darjeeling Government College which will also function as the counting venues. For Kurseong the DCRC will be at St. Alphonsus High School with the counting however to be done at Darjeeling. 

For Siliguri,Phansidewa, Matigara Assembly Constituency the DCRC and counting will be done in Siliguri College and for Chopra the DCRC will be done in Islampur College in Islampur with the counting however to be done in Siliguri. 

There are presently three P-2booths in Darjeeling-Pulbazar block.The polling personnel will be moving for these booths on April 24 it with the other polling personnel moving for their polling stations on April 25.