Ahmedabad: Divyangs to manage 21 booths in district

As many as 21 polling booths in Ahmedabad in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will be manned by Divyangs (differently abled), Ahmedabad collector and district election officer Vikrant Pandey said on Wednesday.

"One polling booth in each of the 21 assembly constituencies in Ahmedabad district will be managed by Divyangs. This is a new initiative aimed at empowering Divyangs," Pandey told reporters while sharing details about the administration's preparations for the April 23 Lok Sabha polls. On similar lines, five booths in each of the 21 assembly constituencies will be managed entirely by women.

Pandey said that the number of registered voters in Ahmedabad district is 54,30,917, which includes 28,39,556 males, 25,91,222 females, and 139 belonging to the third gender. "The number of voters in the age group of 18-19 is 70,717. These voters will be voting in elections for the first time," he said while clarifying that registration of new voters would continue till March 22. The number of polling stations in Ahmedabad is 1,923, while the number of booths is 5,627. The number of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units with the district administration is 130% of the requirement. Pandey also said that model code of conduct was being strictly enforced in the district. He said that 5,164 wall writings, posters, hoardings, etc. have been removed so far.

He said that expenditure monitoring cell had been made operational, and 63 flying squad teams, static surveillance teams, video surveillance teams etc. were deployed.