Following the announcement of the schedule for Assembly elections yesterday, the filing of nominations to the 30-Assembly constituencies in Puducherry will begin today. The nomination process will officially commence with the issuance of the gazette notification under the Representation of the People Act by the Lieutenant Governor. Candidates can file their nominations from today till March 23 with the seventeen Returning Officers designated in the Union Territory. Candidates can also fill the nomination forms online, but they must submit the printed copy in person to the Returning Officer.
Scrutiny of nominations will take place on March 24, and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is March 26. Polling for the Puducherry Legislative Assembly will be held on April 9, while counting of votes will take place on May 4.
Puducherry Chief Electoral Officer P. Jawahar has urged political parties to abide by the Model Code of Conduct and extend full cooperation for the conduct of free, fair and peaceful elections.
Addressing the media yesterday, he expressed confidence that Puducherry will emerge as a model Union Territory by raising the voter turnout to above 90 percent this time. In 2021, Puducherry recorded a polling 82 per cent. Mr. Jawahar informed that as per the latest figures, the Union Territory has a total of 9 lakh 48 thousand 977 voters, including 4 lakh 45 thousand 761 male voters, 5 lakh 3 thousand 76 female voters and 140 third-gender voters. This includes 1,665 NRI voters and 327 service voters. A total of 1,099 polling stations have been proposed across the Union Territory. About 4 thousand 934 staff and 5 thousand 410 police personnel will be engaged in election duty. Extensive security and expenditure monitoring mechanisms have also been put in place. Ten companies of the Central Armed Police Force have already been deployed, and 45 more companies are expected to arrive soon. Around 321 vulnerable areas have been identified for constant monitoring.
Puducherry being an expenditure-sensitive Union Territory from the election point of view, Flying Squads, Static Surveillance Teams, Video Surveillance Teams and Rolling Static Surveillance Teams have started functioning from yesterday. To address the growing challenge of misinformation and disinformation related to elections, the Chief Electoral Officer has launched an initiative titled Meiporul 2.0, an enhanced version of the Meiporul initiative introduced during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The initiative aims to encourage the public to verify election-related information before sharing or believing forwarded messages. The Chief Electoral Officer has also requested voters to lodge complaints regarding violations of the Model Code of Conduct through the toll-free helpline number 1950 or through the c-Vigil mobile application. He added that voters can access background information about candidates through the Know Your Candidate facility available on the ECINET platform.
