Gehlot made 50 districts, but for election commission Rajasthan still has 33

By B S Reporter

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot announced creation of 17 new districts with fanfare ahead of assembly elections. But the central election commission has chalked out poll plans considering 33 districts only.

Rajasthan chief electoral officer Praveen Gupta said that the election commission will appoint election officers in 33 districts only.

Collectors of the erstwhile 33 districts have been called for poll preparation training.

Sources in the election commission said that collectors of newly created districts will be attached to collectors of ‘mother districts' from where new districts have been created.

“Now that less than 2 months are left for kickstart the election process, it's not feasible to realign resources and plans as per the changed district borders,” the official said.

He said that the control of poll management will be with the collectors of erstwhile districts.

“However they may handover responsibilities to their counterparts of newly created districts. In case of any dispute, the final say will be with district election officer – that is collector of original district,” the official said.

Number of voters more than previous election

The election commission has proposed to district collectors that number of voter in one booth should not exceed 1,425 voters.

“If the number of voters is exceeding then new booth should be added for conducting free and fair election. After working on this proposal, the number of polling booths has been increased by 596. The commission also stresses that the distance between two booths should not be more than two kms,” the official said.

The number of polling booths across 200 assembly seats has been revised from 51,187 to 51,756.

“The number of booth is maximum in Jaipur with 4,489 polling stations across 19 assembly seats while Pratapgarh, which has two assembly segments, has 560 polling stations.