Mangaluru: The acceptance of nomination letters for the eight Assembly constituencies will commence on April 17th and the election officials of their respective constituencies will accept the nomination papers from forenoon 11am to afternoon 3pm, informed district election officer Shashikant Senthil at a press meet.

H.R. Nayak is the election officer for Belthangady Assembly constituency and will be present at the taluk, office, V. Prasanna is the election officer for Moodbidri Assembly constituency and will be available at the taluk office, S.B. Prashant is the election officer for Mangaluru city north Assembly constituency and will be present at the office on the second floor of M.C.C. building, on the same flood is the office of Antony Maria who is the election officer for Mangaluru South Assembly constituency, Mahesh Karjahi is the election officer for Mangaluru constituency and will be available at Mangaluru AC office, Ravi Basarihalli is the election officer for Bantwal Assembly constituency and will be present at the taluk office, H.B. Krishnamurthy is the election official for Puttur Assembly constituency and will be available at Puttu AC office and B.T. Manjunathan si the election officer for Sullia Assembly constituency and will be present at the taluk office.

April 24th is the last day for submission of nomination papers. On April 25th the submitted papers will be scrutinized and April 27th is the last day to pull back the nomination papers. During the time of submission of the nomination papers, only three cars are allowed within the premises and along with the candidate, only five members are allowed to enter the office. A DySP level official will be conducting the verification at the office premises.

During this period it’s mandatory to get police permission to conduct processions. It will be added into the expenses of the candidate. The party candidate will need one indicator and the remaining candidates will require ten indicators, he said.

To make sure that the Model Code of Conduct is not violated along the Karnataka –Kerala border, a coordination committee meeting will be held with the district officials of Kasaragod and Dakshina Kannanda at the guest house in Mangaluru University at 11am in the morning on April 18th. In accordance with the commission’s directives, 20 woman friendly and 5 SC/ST friendly pooling booths have been identified.

The Legislative Assembly elections will take place on May 12th and will begin at 7am in morning till 5pm in the evening. 52,000 applications were received in the recent drive conducted by the election commission to register unregistered individuals who are of legal age to vote. Subject to scrutiny, their EPIC cards will be provided within seven days.

To make voting easy for the disabled, wheelchair and vehicle facility has been made available. To make it feasible for the citizens in Yelaniru region of Belthangady, the polling booth will be installed in that region itself. Discussions are on to make use of KSRTC buses for distant polling booths, he said.

Currently there are 9,000 state government officials in the district and 11.000 members are required to carry out election duties. Therefore, central government officials will be requisitioned for assistance. After the selection of candidate has been completed, commission inspectors shall visit all the Assembly constituencies. Efforts have been taken to encourage beggars to vote. Also, verification is being carried to permit patients and a few prison inmates to vote, informed the District Commissioner.