8L new voters enroll under a special drive

LOK SABHA POLLS

Voter registrations have begun and the process will continue right up to a week before the nomination forms are expected to be filed by the candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. Dilip Shinde, additional chief electoral officer told the media on Monday, a total of 8,73,30,484 voters have been registered under this special drive. Shinde said, “The Maharashtra State Election Commission has launched a state-wide Voter Verification and Information Programme (VVIP) campaign. Residents of Maharashtra, who are above 18 years, as on January 1, 2019, will be registered as first time voters. This is a transparent process and easy to follow, which one can do even online.” This special drive was launched on September 1, 2018 and concluded on January 31, 2019. “Out of the 8,73,30,484 voters, 4,57,02,579 are males and 4,16,25,819 are females. In addition, there are 2,086 third gender voters too,” Shinde added. Another official of the election department said, "We have registered the highest number of additions to the existing voter rolls. There are nearly three lakh new voters from Thane (2,97,920) and Mumbai 2,84,912 new voters from Mumbai city and suburbs. Similarly Nashik registered 2,08,724 new voters across the three categories, followed by Pune with 2,00,888 newly inducted voters." The election commission has set up a special toll free helpline number — 1950, for citizens to verify the voter status or alternatively resort to a short messaging service (SMS) option.