In a bid to ensure transparency and restrict the use of black money in upcoming Assembly polls, Delhi chief electoral officer Vijay Dev on Monday said that candidates will have to open a separate bank for expenditure in elections and receipts will have to be submitted of all expenditure for election purpose.
To keep a check on expenditure, assistant expenditure observers will maintain a “shadow expenditure register” of each candidate and the same would be compared with the expenditure register maintained by the candidates.
The upper limit for expenditure for candidates will remain at `14 lakhs.
Mr Dev said that around 3.49 lakh first-time voters in the age group of 18 to 19 will be able to exercise their franchise in the Assembly polls slated for November.
As per the electoral roll published Tuesday, the total number of voters in the city are 1,14,88,752 out which 63,68,694 are men and 51,19,517 women.
The young voters’ population stands at 3.04 per cent of the total. The number of total eligible voters in 2008 Assembly polls was 1.07 crore which went up to 1.11 crore during Lok Sabha election in 2009.
“Voting will take place in 11,763 polling booths in 2,603 locations. 634 polling locations have been identified as ‘critical’ where special security measures will be put in place,” Mr Dev said.
He said the election commission will continue updating the electoral roll till 10 days before the last date of filing the nominations for the Assembly polls though the final electoral roll has been published.
Giving details about steps to encourage eligible youngsters to exercise their franchise, Mr Dev said the commission has appointed one “ambassador” each in 863 educational institutions to ensure all students get enrolled in voters’ list.
The commission will launch campaigns to educate voters on the legal provisions against bribery.
“It will be emphasised that both taker and giver are liable for punishment which is up to one year of imprisonment,” he said.