With only two days left for polls, Gagrani appeals to people to vote

With only two days left for the civic elections in Mumbai, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has ramped up its manpower to ensure that the electoral process is being carried out smoothly. Alongside this, the civic authorities have also started cracking the whip on miscreants as civic data shows that illegal items including cash and drugs worth Rs 47.33 crore were confiscated from different locations in the past 20 days, since the code of conduct was imposed.

Addressing reporters on Monday, Bhushan Gagrani, municipal commissioner and district election officer, appealed to citizens to cast their votes on Thursday.

“The administration has taken several initiatives to make sure there is adequate awareness among citizens about the upcoming elections.

The State Election Commission (SEC) has also declared a holiday on Thursday; therefore, we appeal to the citizens to exercise their rights and cast their votes on Thursday,” Gagrani said on Monday.

Gagrani also maintained that the SEC has not given any direction to ban mobile phones inside polling booths yet.

In many polling stations, during the Lok Sabha polls in May 2024, mobile phones were not allowed by the local police, creating inconvenience for citizens. Following this, in May last year, the Election Commission had announced that voters will have to deposit their mobiles in a phone deposit facility that will be created outside booths.

“Even though the SEC hasn’t given us any instructions about disallowing mobile phones inside polling stations, it is advised that citizens should enter the booth without their phones. In case they still want to carry phones with them, one should do so only by switching it off instead of keeping it on silent mode,” Gagrani said.

The BMC on Monday also maintained that it has confiscated illegal items amounting to Rs 47.33 crore in the past 20 days, after the model code of conduct (MCC) was announced by the SEC following the announcement of election dates. The data provided by the authorities show that of the confiscated items, cash worth Rs 3.10 crore were seized from as many as 23 locations across Mumbai. The recovery was made by the BMC’s Static Surveillance Teams (SST), Flying Squads and Expenditure Deployment Cells that were deployed to keep a track on the MCC rules being implemented in Mumbai. “Of the total cash that were seized, the highest seizure of Rs 20 lakh was made from one single location at Andheri (East),” said a civic official privy to the development.

Further, the BMC’s data also show that besides the cash, nearly 1,237 litres of illicit liquor were seized by the teams. The market price of the liquor stands at Rs 8.03 lakh. The SST and Flying Squads also seized drugs amounting to 55 kg, whose present-day market value stand at Rs 44.15 crore.

Civic officials on Monday also stated that this time the money BMC is planning to spend during the elections will be 30 per cent more than what it had spent in 2017.

Civic officials said that in 2017 they had spent Rs 130 crore and this time, the expenditure will go up since the number of polling booths that have been set up this year is also more. According to the BMC’s data, there will be a 40 per cent increase in polling stations in Mumbai. Earlier in 2017, there were 7,297 polling stations for the civic polls, while this year the BMC has proposed setting up 10,231 stations. Besides this, the officials have also maintained that a manpower of 64,000 personnel will be deployed compared to 49,000 personnel deployed last year.

During the press conference, Gagrani also maintained that a new device equipped with Printing Auxiliary Display Unit (PADU) technology will be deployed in all the polling stations.

Usually the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) system comprises a control unit (CU) and a ballot unit (BU).

“These two units work as an integrated system. If the CU display is not found to be working during the polling, then the PADU system will be integrated with the EVM to ensure there is transparency and accuracy in the poll procedure,” Gagrani said. In total, 140 PADU systems have been acquired as a back-up measure and Gagrani said that this will be the first time that this technology will be used in a civic poll.