Sampath said gender disparity in Maharashtra among voters is five per cent as compared to less than two per cent in the country.
“We also want to reach out to defence personnel and government officials on poll duty through postal ballot. The Election Commission will take pro-active measures,” he said.
Sampath said that state poll officials had been asked to review basic minimum facilities in polling stations. He said that directives have also been issued to officials, to ensure equitable distribution of campaign facilities. “Expenditure control monitoring will be done strictly.
District level committees will be asked to keep a close watch on paid news,” he said.
When asked about the demand to include live telecast of speeches of candidates as paid news, Sampath said identification of paid news is done by district committees.
“What is legitimate propaganda, how much of it is legitimate broadcast and what part can be treated as paid news would have to be examined,” he said.
Asked about when election dates would be announced, he said that the Election Commission had taken views of political parties about dates of polling.
“We will consider factors involved in fixing dates like examinations, rains, festivals and announce the poll schedule at the appropriate time,” he said. He said that there are a total of 8.06 crore registered voters in the state of Maharashtra.
Election Commissioner H S Brahma said that the Election Commission is doing its best to reach out to voters whose names were deleted during the recent Lok Sabha polls.
“However we were told that 60 per cent of the postal mail we sent were returned, because voters were not found to be living at the given addresses. We appeal to voters who could not vote last time to contact the district collector's office and register,” he said.
When asked about former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan's paid news case, Brahma said, “We have registered strong objections in our (Election Commission's) show cause notice issued to him (on Sunday) and we are awaiting his (Ashok Chavan's) response to it”.
