For the first time, voters on Saturday’s Delhi Assembly election will be inked by using a brush and not a stick. Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Chandra Bhushan Kumar said on Thursday that ink applied with a brush dries much faster.
Besides, in two constituencies — Delhi Cantt and New Delhi — voters will be using Voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines. The facility was available in just one constituency in 2013. The VVPAT machines produce a slip containing details of the choice of vote exercised by a voter. He also urged voters not carry cameras and mobile phones within 200 metres of a polling station. There will be no place to deposit phones at there.
Even as political parties have been accusing each other of trying to buy votes, the CEO informed that over 1,35,000 bottles of liquor have been confiscated and destroyed from various parts of the city by the Excise Department during raids conducted in the run-up to the election.
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Apart from a ban here on purchase of liquor for 48 hours before the polls, the ban will also extend up to three km into Haryana and eight km into Uttar Pradesh during the same period. Thirty-eight arms, unlicensed weapons and Rs.32,20,000 in cash has also been seized.
A paid holiday has been declared in Haryana and U.P. as well to ensure that those eligible to vote in Delhi can do so.