Curtains down on campaigning in MP, time for 1.6 crore voters of Indore-Ujjain to get inked

Indore: Electioneering on Saturday reached a crescendo before the ECI deadline for campaigning came to force in the evening leaving the fate of candidates in Lok Sabha constituencies in the hands of voters exercising their franchise on May 13.
Eight Lok Sabha seats of Indore-Ujjain division, which have around 1.6 crore voters, are set for polling in the fourth phase on Monday.While Congress is not in the contest at Indore Lok Sabha seat with its candidate withdrawing the nomination at the last-moment, remaining seven seats – Dewas-Shajapur, Ujjain, Mandsaur-Neemuch, Alirajpur-Jhabua-Ratlam, Dhar, Khargone-Barwani and Khandwa seat have a direct contest between both the major political parties.
Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) candidates contesting from Alirajpur-Jhabua-Ratlam and Dhar seat are expected to make their presence felt for the party receiving considerable response in previous elections.
As per the records, Indore Lok Sabha seat has maximum around 25.02 lakh voters, followed by around 21 lakh electors in Khandwa, around 20 lakh electors in Alirajpur-Jhabua-Ratlam and similar number of voters in Khargone, around 19.43 lakh electors in Dhar, around 19.31 lakh voters in Dewas, close to 19 lakh voters in Mandsaur-Neemuch and around 17.77 lakh voters in Ujjain Lok Sabha seat.
From 6pm on Saturday, there will now be no public gatherings, meetings, or processions for election campaigning. However, door-to-door public interactions will persist without large gatherings.
Currently, as we await the voting on May 13, the polling teams will be sent out on Sunday morning. The complete responsibility, from dispatching the election material to depositing it, will lie with all the sector officers and sector police officers. The sector officers are expected to conduct the polling in a peaceful, fair, and successful manner. GPS equipped vehicles have been allotted to the sector officers for transportation of polling parties. This will enable monitoring of the sector officers from the control room.
The election material will be distributed to the polling parties on Sunday morning. The use of mobile phones at the polling booth will be completely prohibited.
After the voting on Monday, the polling parties will return to the base (election material distribution points) and deposit the EVMs at the strongrooms that will be sealed and again opened on June 4 for counting of votes before announcing the results.
Strong police security will be there outside the polling booths and at the strongrooms, where the EVMs will be kept.