Maharashtra elections 2024: Mumbai rolls out new reforms for a hassle free election

Civic chief Bhushan Gagrani at the BMC headquarters on Monday. Pic/Kirti Surve Parade

After witnessing low voter turnouts and long queues at polling centres during the recent Lok Sabha election, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has taken steps to make the voting process less taxing. According to officials, toilets and waiting rooms have been set up at polling centres.

Bhushan Gagrani, the municipal commissioner and district election officer for Mumbai and the suburbs, at a press conference at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) headquarters on Monday, said that facilities would be provided to voters at polling booths.

Sanjay Ramgude (centre), president of the Sukhant Antim Sanskar Seva Sansthan, has been visiting housing societies, schools, and corporate offices to raise awareness about the importance of voting in Wednesday's state assembly election. Dressed as Lord Yama, Ramgude works with Mumbai's newspaper vendors to deliver the message that voting is an important democratic right and that everyone in the city should exercise it

Gagrani elaborated, "Facilities such as waiting rooms, drinking water, clean toilets and chairs will be provided and volunteers will be deputed to help voters. To accelerate the voting process, the BMC has introduced a new arrangement whereby four voters will be allowed to enter a polling booth simultaneously. Before, only one voter was allowed at a time."

Facilities for differently abled

A special helpline number, 1950, has been created for Divyang (differently abled) voters and vehicles dropping off voters to centres will pick them up from 1,284 spots across the city and suburbs.

"The centres are equipped with wheelchairs and ramps and volunteers are present to help Divyang voters," said Gagrani.

There had been complaints about uneven ramps during past elections. "We have taken measures to ensure Divyang voters can exercise their franchise easily," Gagrani added.

Meanwhile, mobile phones will not be allowed within a 100-metre radius of a polling centre even if switched off. "We had discussed allowing mobile phones at voting centres with the Election Commission. But there are some legal issues. So, they are not allowed even if they are switched off," said Gagrani.

Around one lakh people, including 60,000 BMC employees and 25,696 police officers, will be on election duty on November 20. In the Lok Sabha election, around 48,000 BMC employees were deputed on election duty. Gagrani said this would not affect the essential services as staff involved with essential services such as medical and fire brigade officers were not assigned election-related work.

Seizures of cash, illicit goods

According to Gagrani, around Rs 347.31 crore worth of cash, precious metals, liquor, drugs and freebies were seized while the Model Code of Conduct was being imposed in Mumbai. From the suburbs alone, precious metals worth 238.67 crores were seized. While Rs 45.57 crore in cash and drugs worth R48.96 crore were seized in the city and suburbs. "The income-tax department is looking into the matter of the seized cash," he said.

Lok Sabha poll chaos

Earlier this year, during the general election, voters complained about delays and long queues at some polling centres. According to news reports, at Sion Koliwada, Dharavi and Bandra, it took hours for some to exercise their franchise.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Mumbai recorded a voting percentage of 55 per cent, which declined to 52.38 per cent this year. For the upcoming Assembly election, the number of polling booths in the metropolis has increased by 218. To reduce queues, the ECI has reduced the average number of voters per polling station from 1,500 to 1,200.

Critical polling stations

The Election Commission has directed that polling stations where the percentage of votes polled during the recent general election was more than 90 per cent or more than 75 per cent of votes polled were in favour of one candidate or less than 10 per cent of votes were recorded be identified as critical polling stations. There are around 73 such polling stations in Mumbai and no sensitive polling station.

Rs 347.31 cr
Value of cash, illicit goods seized in Mumbai when Model Code of Conduct was in force

Things to known

1 You can locate your polling station at: https://electoralsearch.eci.gov.in/pollingstation
2 Check VVPAT slip after pressing the button on EVM machine
3 Vote early in the day as high temperatures are expected in the afternoon
4 Mobile phones are not allowed inside polling station
6 Senior citizens, voters with disabilities and pregnant women will get priority