Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Apr 20: State chief election commissioner, Sanjiv Kumar, said that the central election commission has extended the time allotted to the voters for casting their votes during the assembly election here on May 12 by an hour.

Addressing a press meet at Vikasa Soudha here on Thursday April 19, Kumar recalled that the election timing had been fixed between 7 am to 5 pm in the past. He said that several suggestions and requests were received to extend polling hours, and these had been forwarded to the central election commission. The central commission gave its nod for this recommendation. Therefore, on May 12, voters would be able to cast their votes from 7 am to 6 pm, he clarified.

Kumar said that the suggestion to set up separate polling booths in large-sized apartments has not been upheld by the commission. "We have set up 58,000 polling booths and deployed 3.65 lac personnel to manage them. If we opt to set up additional polling booths, we will encounter staff shortage. Initially we had set a target of having 450 pink polling booths exclusively for ladies. As there was demand from various districts for additional booths, about 6 00 pink polling booths will be functional this time," he explained.

Sanjiv Kumar stated that vigil will be kept on the daily financial dealings of cooperative banks in the state as there have been complaints of funds being transferred through cooperative banks for election. He however felt that it would not be right to blame election for shortage of cash in ATMs being operated in the state. He said RBI would be in a better position to explain this phenomenon.

The commission has chosen Jnanpith awardee, Dr Chandrashekhar Kambar, as the election ambassador. On Thursday, a video of Dr Kambar's message on voting was released. Along with this, messages given by actors Puneeth Rajkumar and Praneetha on voting were also released.