16 October,2014 05:14 AM IST | | Anuj Ismail
According to district election officer Saurabh Rao, no booth capturing, bogus voting and missing name in the voters list was reported in the 21 constituencies
Saurabh Rao
Between the highest voting percentage of 77.93 per cent recorded at Indapur and the lowest at Pune Cantonment with 42.49 per cent, 61.60 per cent voters exercised their franchise in the district on Wednesday. According to district election officer and collector, Saurabh Rao, there were no reports of booth capturing, bogus voting and even missing name in the voters list in the 21 assembly constituencies of Pune district. Making the most of technology, the collector coordinated with polling booth officers via telephone, WhatsApp, Google Drive and centralised SMS system.
Pune district election officer and collector Saurabh Rao addressed the media at council hall on Wednesday. Representation pic
18 EVMs replaced
After polling commenced, there were reports of 18 Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) being replaced, including three at Khadakwasla and three at Bhosari, after receiving complaints about low battery, non-functioning buzzer and press key error. Addressing the media at the council hall, Rao said, "The machines were changed immediately and the data registered in the EVMs will be retrieved by engineers of ECIL and BEL at the time of counting. During continuous update and at the summary revision of electoral rolls, around 3.62 lakh names were registered."
The collector also informed that the offline search facility to check the name of the voters was placed at 320 locations where officials, equipped with either a laptop or desktop, were helping citizens who were unable to locate their names. "The offline system was designed in such a manner that it searched the name of an individual based on their constituency, and also in the master file linked with NIC. Because of this, not a single complaint of missing name was registered," he said.
Talking about security measures taken in the district, Rao said, "We had flying and standing squad that helped conduct polls smoothly. We issued security alert after 4 pm at Khadakwasla, Junnar and Ambegaon to prevent any untoward incident."
