The District Election Office here has increased the number of flying squads deployed in Madurai district by three-fold, said Collector and Returning Officer S. Natarajan here on Thursday.
Briefing media persons on preparations for the upcoming parliamentary elections, he said that while each of the 10 Assembly segments had three flying squads earlier, it had been increased to nine. “There were 30 teams working in total in eight-hour shifts. At any given time, one flying squad was working in a constituency. Now, with 90 teams, there will be three flying squads in a constituency at any given time to monitor violations of the Model Code of Conduct,” he said.
Apart from proactive monitoring by these teams, he said that complaints were being received through helplines in Election Control Room and the cVIGIL mobile application. “We have received 16 complaints through cVIGIL, of which 13 were found to be credible and acted upon,” he said.
Highlighting that there were 2,755 polling stations in Madurai district in 1,109 locations, he said that 792 polling stations had been identified as vulnerable. “Only two polling stations have been identified as critical as of now,” he added.
Volunteers to help
Stating that special focus was being given for physically challenged voters, he said that officials were targeting to deploy at least two volunteers in every polling station to assist them in polling. “We are targeting two volunteers. We will ensure at least one person is present,” he said.
He said that since the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation were asked to operate more buses on the polling date, steps had been initiated to provide postal votes to bus drivers and conductors who would not be able to vote while on duty.
