By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 1 Apr: Additional Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Kumar Jogdande held a press briefing here, today, and revealed that, in the last 16 days after the Model Code of Conduct for Lok Sabha General Election-2024 came into effect, action is being taken by the enforcement agencies, the Police Department, Income Tax, Excise Department, Customs and other departments to prevent violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCOC). The eSMS system has been implemented for the first time in the state. Since the Model Code of Conduct came into effect, cash worth more than Rs 10.71 crores has been seized so far. Of this total, cash worth Rs 5. 29 crores were seized by the police, Rs 4.95 crores by the Income Tax Department and Rs 39 lakh by the Excise Department.
Jogdande added that, in the 2019 Lok Sabha General Elections, Cash worth Rs 1.97 crores was seized by the police, Rs 45 lakhs by the Income Tax Department and Rs 19 lakhs by the Excise Department in the state.
The Additional Chief Electoral Officer said that, so far, component wise seizure has resulted in seizure of cash worth Rs 3.59 crores, seizure of contraband material worth Rs 2.55 crores under Narcotics, Drugs and NDPS, cash Rs 1.86 crores related to excise, and other materials worth Rs 2.70 crores have been seized. The maximum amount worth Rs 6.80 lakhs has been seized in Haridwar district and Rs 1 crore has been seized in Nainital district.
Jogdande said that after all the electoral rolls were prepared, the process of distributing voter information slips at all 11,729 booths has started. Action is being taken by all the BLOs to go to the voters’ homes and distribute voter information slips. He requested all the voters of the state to get their Voter Information Slip, if the BLO is not able to be contacted, then they should inform the concerned ARO about this.
