Red carpet welcome for voters at 24 model booths

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 18

The fate of Congress candidate Pawan Kumar Bansal, BJP’s Kirron Kher and Harmohan Dhawan of AAP, along with 33 other contenders, will be sealed as Chandigarh votes for its lone parliamentary seat tomorrow. The number of candidates for the seat is the highest this time.

Election material was today dispatched to all 597 polling booths amid tight security. Electronic voting machines (EVMs) have been synchronised with voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT).

A total of 6,46,084 voters, including 3,41,640 male, 3,04,423 female and 21 others, will cast the ballot in the city.

Special arrangements have been made at the ‘model polling booths’.

Sources said the department had set up 24 model booths this time, which were being aesthetically decorated with flowers, etc. so as to give them a festive look. Voters will be offered red carpet welcome at these booths. They will be served tea and biscuits. A few of them may also be presented gifts.

Besides, there are around 230 sensitive booths.

App to tell voters length of queue

For the first time, the Election Department, UT, has prepared a mobile app, Chandigarh Voter App (CVA), which will help voters get information about the queue at their polling booth. The application can be downloaded from Google Play Store. Voters will be sent a notification on their registered cellphone number about the length of the queue at an interval of 15 minutes. After casting the vote, the user can click the button, “I voted - Stop Queue Notification”, on the application.

Prohibited inside polling booths

• Use of mobiles phone 
• Selfie during voting activity 
• Videorecording and photography 
• Liquids or eatables
• Weapon
• Volatile or inflammable material like matchstick