It8217;s your voting day today

PUNE, Sept 10: More than 14 lakh Puneites will decide their Lok Sabha representatives and six MLAs tomorrow with the majority of them wil...

PUNE, Sept 10: More than 14 lakh Puneites will decide their Lok Sabha representatives and six MLAs tomorrow with the majority of them will be voting simultaneously for both the elections for the first time. The last simultaneous election for Lok Sabha and Assembly was held in 1967 in Maharashtra.

Pune city Lok Sabha constituency is witnessing triangular contest among Pradeep Rawat of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mohan Joshi of the Indian National Congress and Vitthal Tupe of the Nationalist Congress Party NCP even though 14 candidates are in the fray.

For Assembly elections there are total 127 candidates in six segments of the city. However, all of them are triangular even though a few rebels are trying their luck. The assembly elections were pre-poned by six months after the Lok Sabha was dissolved.

There are about 14,34,680 electorates in Pune. The voting will start at 7 am and conclude at 5 pm at 1731 polling stations in the city. The siren will be sounded at the start and end of the voting process. The voters, standing in the queue at the time of siren, will be allowed to vote. More than 13,000 government employees are involved in the entire exercise.

In the neighbouring Khed and Baramati constituencies, which will also witness triangual fights, more than 26 lakhs voters will elect their representatives. NCP president Sharad Pawar is fighting from Baramati Lok Sabha constituency. He is being challenged by Congress Ramkrishna More and Pratibha Lokhande of BJP. NCP candidate Khed 8211; Ashok Mohol is facing stiff opposition from Kisanrao Bankhele of the Shiv Sena and Ram Kandge of Congress. The assembly elections for 12 segments in the district will also held simultaneously.

The election in city has aroused considerable interest because of the vertical split in the Congress. Pradeep Rawat and Mohan Joshi are fighting their first electoral battle while NCP8217;s Vitthal Tupe is trying to retain the seat, which he had won as a Congress nominee in the last election.

The dull electioneering peaked in the last phase because of public rallies of star campaigners of all the parties. The political workers believe that the election outcome of the city will mainly depend on the split in the Congress, Kargil issue and leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi.

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Largest Ballot Paper: Pune Lok Sabha constituency, where 14 candidates are in the fray, will have the largest ballot paper admeasuring 6 X 10 inch in the district while ballot papers of standard size will be used in the remaining constituencies.

District Collector Vijay Kumar Gautam, who is also the chief returning officer for Pune district explained how the district administration was planning to conduct the simultaneous elections of the Lok Sabha and State Assembly, a phenomena taking place after 32 years.

White colour paper will be used to print the ballot papers for the Lok Sabha elections while the ballot papers for State Assembly polls will be printed on pink papers. The voters will be asked to cast their votes for the State Assembly first and then the exercise their franchise for the Lok Sabha seat.

Certain restrictions will be imposed on the voters to ensure smooth conduct of polls. They will not be allowed to take any baggage including ladies purses and handbags inside the polling booths. Carrying of pagers and cellular phones inside the polling booths will also be banned. Those having police protection will not be allowed to take the policemen escorting them inside the booth, Gautam said.