Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha has said the number of polling stations in the State has gone up by at least 4,000 with the increase in the number of voters.
Speaking to presspersons here on Saturday, he said the number of polling stations during the last Assembly elections was a little over 50,000. It had gone up to 54,261 for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. As many electronic voting machines (EVMs) would be used during the elections with a provision for extra ballot units, he added.
He said two-time randomisation of EVMs would be done to ensure secrecy about which machine would be sent where.
In Chamarajanagar, election officials seized Rs. 26 lakh from a political worker in Chamarajanagar, Rs. 6 lakh at the Byadgi check-post in Bagalkot district, Rs. 2.5 lakh in Satanur of Ramanagaram district, Rs. 2.16 lakh at Agadi cross in Dharwad district and Rs.1.2 lakh at Puttur rural in Dakshina Kannada district.
He said that so far, officials had seized a total of Rs. 1.44 crore from different parties and candidates.
Saris were seized at Honnaganahalli of Kanakapura taluk and Ramanagaram, 17 T-shirts in Puttur, four musical instruments from Mulbagal and 350 caps at Koppal.
The former MLA and State secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) G.V. Srirama Reddy and the former Minister Ramesh Jigajinagi on Saturday filed their nomination papers from Chickballapur and Bijapur constituencies respectively. The former Minister B.T. Lalitha Naik, Aam Aadmi Party candidate in Gulbarga, and R. Dhruvanarayan, Congress candidate from Chamarajanagar, also filed their papers.
As many as 26 candidates filed 32 nomination papers on Saturday.
Till date, a total of 111 candidates have filed 167 sets of nomination papers in the State. The BJP has filed papers in 13 constituencies, the Congress in 14, Janata Dal (Secular) in four and CPI (M) in one constituency.
