BALURGHAT, March 18 -- 36 booths of Balurghat Lok Sabha constituency are going to be crewed entirely by women in 2024 Lok Sabha elections, stated Bijin Krishna, District Election Officer and District Magistrate, South Dinajpur.
Balurghat Lok Sabha constituency will be going to polls on April 26 in the second phase along with Raiganj and Darjeeling. "Balurghat seat consists of seven Assembly constituencies namely Balurghat, Gangarampur, Tapan, Kushmandi, Harirampur, Kumarganj and North Dinajpur's Itahar. A total of 36 booths in Balurghat seat are going to be fully crewed by women.
The Chief Electoral Officer's office has already been informed so that we can provide women security guards at all these booths. By voting in booths run by women, we can send the message that women can take a leading role in voting and, thus, women empowerment can be ensured," stated Krishna.
There are 15,56,900 voters in the constituency, including 7,95,776 male voters; 7,61,052 female voters and 79 third gender voters. The total number of polling stations is 1,569.
In the Press conference, Krishna said: "More than 40 per cent of the district's physically challenged voters have already been identified by the Election department and the number of such voters is 7,123 and the number of 85-year-old voters is 7,279."
As many as 6,408 staff will be deployed to conduct the polls. The EVM machines will be brought to Balurghat College and kept in the strong room till June 4, the day of counting.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.