Kolhapur: District returning officer Daulat Desai on Sunday said all political parties should do away with hoardings, banners and posters for advertisement by Monday afternoon. With the announcement of the election schedule, the model code of conduct has come into force.Desai said those who fail to adhere to the deadline will face criminal cases. Monitoring has already begun.Desai said, “There are 3,321 polling booths for Kolhapur constituency, 4,606 VVPATS (voter-verified paper audit trail), and 7,555 ballot units, with 4,444 control units. All primary inspections of machines have been done in the presence of representatives of the political parties from time to time.”Desai said all polling booths will be equipped with assured minimum facilities like drinking water, sheds, toilet, ramp for physically challenged voters and a standard voting compartment.Desai said that the district has 15,80,563 male voters and 14,95,114 female voters.He said that the district has 71 critical polling stations, which will be closely monitored. The officer has appealed voters to download and use ‘Cvigil’ mobile application to get more information about the election process and file complaints.The campaigning budget is capped at Rs 70 lakh for a candidate. On duplication in the voters’ lists, Desai said the process of verification is on.SP Abhinav Deshmukh said election related preparations had begun and training has been conducted for home guards and other officials. Flying squad and SSTs too are on alert, as they have the most important duty of monitoring the implementation of the code of conduct.The Cvigil app is an important development this time, as once a complaint is received, action has to be taken within 100 minutes. This should be used by voters, the SP said.“The election will be in phases, so transport of the different region’s political activists and goons are marked according to the election dates. Restricting their activities with nakabandi will be high priority,” he said. “We seize cash of more than Rs 10 lakh and it is handed over to income tax authorities,” he added.

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