Amir Tantray
Jammu, Apr 25: Jammu Parliamentary constituency is all set to go for the polls during the second phase of General Elections which will seal the deal for the arch rivals Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and Congress Party.
The fate of 22 candidates, who are in the fray, will be decided by over 17.80 lakh voters on the Jammu Parliamentary seat.
According to reports, there is a direct fight between BJP’s Jugal Kishore Sharma and Congress party’s Raman Bhalla. As Sharma is seeking votes on the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bhalla is reminding people his good work done in Jammu in the past when he represented Gandhinagar Assembly constituency of Jammu district in J&K Legislative Assembly and also when he was minister in Omar Abdullah led National Conference (NC)-Congress coalition government.
After delimitation exercise, barring Sunderbani-Kalaote Assembly segment, Rajouri and Poonch districts were separated from Jammu Parliamentary constituency and Reasi district, which was earlier part of Udhampur Lok Sabha seat, was made part of it. The new shape of this constituency is suiting a particular party and its candidates depending upon the earlier trend for the last two Lok Sabha elections and this time also the incumbent Member Parliament (MP) is hopeful to win it.
At present, 17,80,835 lakh voters including 9,21,095 male and 8,59,712 female voters besides 28 third gender electorates are eligible to vote for this seat. Out of the total voters, 10498 people are registered as Persons with Disability (PWD) and 666 voters are above the age of 100 who will be exercising their franchise to send their leader to Lok Sabha for the next five years. This constituency consists of 11 Assembly segments of Jammu district including Bishnah, Suchetgarh, Ranbir Singh Pura (Jammu-south), Bahu, Jammu East, Nagrota, Jammu West, Jammu North, Marh, Akhnoor and Chamb, three Assembly segments of Samba district including Ramgarh, Samba and Vijaypur, three Assembly segments of Reasi district including Gulabgarh, Reasi and Shri Mata Vasihno Devi and one Assembly segment of Rajouri district Kalakote-Sunderbani.
According to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) J&K, around 2,416 polling stations have been established all across three districts and one Assembly segment of Rajouri district to ensure smooth polling. More than 15000 polling staff, including reserves will be deployed on duty on the polling day and the election staff including Presiding Officers will be stationed in every polling station.
Around 50 polling stations have been established in border areas of Jammu district whereas 2 such polling stations are there in Samba district.
The voting will begin at 7 am and the first voter will be provided a rose at every polling station and the polling will continue till 6 pm. The voting will go beyond 6 pm if there will be voters’ queue is still there inside the polling station premises. Before the polling begins, a mock polling drill will be held at every polling station to test the preparedness.
To facilitate the smooth polling, the election commission of India has provided Assured Minimum Facilities (AMF) like drinking water, electricity, toilet, ramp, furniture, verandah, sheds besides wheelchairs will also be provided to the needy. The ballot unit will also have a list of contesting candidates in brail script. Wherever required, there will be separate queues for senior citizens and specially-abled persons facilitating them with early polling. Additionally, there will be a voter help desk, manned by the concerned Booth Level Officer (BLO).
On the directions of ECI, 10 Pink booths, which will be managed by only women staff for women voters, have been established in the constituency whereas 10 booths have been established particularly for specially-abled voters. The ECI has also established nine booths for the youth.
The voter can carry any of the 12 types of document which can establish his identity to the polling station and the electoral photo identity card (EPIC) hasn’t been made mandatory for the ECI.
Besides, the Voter Turnout App will be used to display estimated provisional voter turnout details of each Parliamentary Constituency entered by the Returning Officer (RO). The approximate voter turnout data of each phase of the elections will be displayed through this app. There will be two hourly reporting of voting percentage from 9.00 am to the end of the poll. The concerned ARO and RO will share the data with the media accordingly.
Around 1454 polling stations in phase 2 will have CCTV cameras for live webcasting to control rooms established at the District and CEO office. Around 124 polling stations will have two cameras for inside and outside surveillance. Around 2000 vehicles of Polling parties and sector officers will be equipped with a GPS system so as to locate the vehicle and monitor movement, including over speeding. Satellite Phones, Wireless sets and Special Runners have been put in place in around 13 polling stations which fall in communication shadow areas.
