Voters of 8 parliamentary constituencies of the State namely Dewas, Ujjain, Mandsaur, Ratlam, Dhar, Indore, Khergone and Khandwa will be using their suffrage rights today in the fourth phase of elections. As per the information from the Election Commission (EC), 74 candidates will be crossing their fingers today among which 69 are male and remaining are women. Among the hot constituencies, 5 have no female candidates. Ironically, women constitute for 49.6 percent of vote share in the areas where election is scheduled today. Speaking over the preparations of the EC, State chief electoal officer Anupam Rajan said, “The voting teams have also reached the polling booths for conducting the electoral process. The election which will commence from 7 in the morning will experience a mock poll at 5 a.m. along with EVMs and VVPAT machines.” Out of the total constituencies, Indore ranks first with having 14 voters whereas the least number of candidates have been recorded at Khargone with 5.

 

The information also stated that the constituencies have over 2,000 centenarian voters along with around 88,000 voters crossing the age of 85. The fourth phase will also witness around 5 percent of teen voters. Among the 18,007 polling booths made for the elections, 946 booths have been categorized as model polling booths and 2,001 are such where the all works will be managed by females. The commission has also identified 53 critical regions and has also taken restrictive action against 130 people who are under the suspicion of disturbing the polling process. 191 flying squad teams (FSTs) and 257 state surveillance teams (SSTs) have been also deployed at the booths in order to ensure free and fair elections in the State.