look news india
Lucknow, 20 May (HS). In the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, voting started from 7 am today on 14 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh, which will continue till 6 pm. In this phase, the fate of 144 candidates including Defense Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow Lok Sabha seat, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli, Union Minister Smriti Zubin Irani from Amethi, Niranjan Jyoti from Fatehpur will be decided. District election officials have made all arrangements to avoid heat wave and heat at the polling places.
Polling places in 14 Lok Sabha general constituencies in the state are Mohanlalganj (reserved), Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jalaun (reserved), Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi (reserved), Barabanki (reserved), Faizabad, Kaiserganj and Gonda. But there was a queue of voters since morning. Voters will exercise their franchise from seven in the morning to six in the evening.
There are 2 crore 71 lakh 36 thousand 363 voters in these Lok Sabha constituencies. In this, the number of male voters is one crore 44 lakh 05 thousand 97, the number of female voters is one crore 27 lakh 30 thousand 186. At the same time, there are 1,080 third gender voters. In terms of number of voters in the fifth phase, the highest number of voters are in Mohanlalganj (reserved) and the lowest number of voters are in Banda Lok Sabha constituency.
There are a total of 28,688 polling booths in the fifth phase of elections, out of which 4,232 are critical. There are 17,128 polling stations. To keep a vigilant eye on the voting, 03 special observers, 14 general observers, 09 police observers and 15 expenditure observers have also been deployed.
Apart from this, 2416 Sector Magistrates, 327 Zonal Magistrates, 549 Static Magistrates and 3619 Micro Observers have also been deployed. 7426 heavy vehicles, 7410 light vehicles and 1,28,642 polling personnel have been deployed to conduct the election process.
35,684 EVM control units, 36,089 ballot units and 37,565 VV Pats have been prepared for voting in the elections. Adequate paramilitary forces have been deployed to conduct the elections peacefully.
In view of the scorching heat and heat wave, Chief Electoral Officer of the state Navdeep Rinwa instructed all the district election officers to take full precautions to avoid the heat. There should be provision of cold drinking water, toilets, wheel chairs and chairs for disabled and elderly people in all polling stations. There should be provision of shade till the queue of voters in the polling station premises.
To protect against heatstroke, paramedics and ASHA workers should be present at every polling station with adequate quantities of ORS and medical kits. Paramedic personnel were also present along with the Sector Magistrate. The emergency ambulance services available in the districts should be kept at different suitable places so that they can be easily sent to the polling centers and polling booths if needed.