LS polls: Over 58,000 voters opt for home voting option in Rajasthan

Jaipur: More than 58,000 voters in Rajasthan have so far opted for home voting in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, an official said on Wednesday.

For the first phase of the general election, 35,542 people, including 26,371 senior citizens and 9,171 persons with disabilities, have registered for home voting, the state's Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta said.

Registration for home voting in the first phase of the polls will be completed Wednesday, he said.

Returning officers will share the list of registered home voters with all recognised political parties and candidates by April 1.

Booth-level officers are completing the registration process of eligible home voters in all 25 Lok Sabha constituencies of the state, Gupta said. After the names of the candidates for the constituencies are finalised, door-to-door voting will be conducted, he said.

"So far, over 58,000 eligible voters have opted to vote from home. These include 43,638 senior citizens and 14,385 persons with disabilities," the chief electoral officer said.

Special polling teams will be formed to conduct home voting and their training will be completed by April 4. These teams will reach the residences of registered home voters in the presence of political parties and their candidates to conduct voting through postal ballots.

In the first phase, home voting will be conducted from April 5 to 14.

In the Lok Sabha constituencies where voting will be held in the second phase, individuals can apply for home voting till April 2, Gupta added.

So far, about 22,500 eligible voters have registered for 'vote from home' in the second phase. These include 17,324 senior citizens and 5,222 disabled voters.

The list of these voters will be shared with the recognised political parties and candidates by the returning officers by April 8.

Home voting in the second phase will take place from April 14 to 21.

The chief electoral officer said home voting was conducted successfully during the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly elections with 99 per cent of registered voters casting their votes. This included 49,650 senior citizens (aged above 80) and 11,774 persons with disabilities.

Gupta said the home voting facility is an option available to senior citizens aged 85 years and above and persons with disabilities exceeding 40 per cent. Under this initiative, officials will go door-to-door and share this information with the eligible voters.

The General Elections in Rajasthan will be held in two phases – on April 19 and 26.

In the first phase, voting will be held in 12 Lok Sabha constituencies – Ganganagar, Bikaner, Churu, Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Jaipur Rural, Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur, Dausa and Nagaur.

The remaining 13 seats of Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, Ajmer, Pali, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jalore, Udaipur, Banswara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota and Jhalawar-Baran will go to polls in the second phase.

Bypolls in the Bagidora assembly constituency under the Banswara Lok Sabha constituency will also be conducted in the second phase. The seat fell vacant after Congress MLA Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya joined the BJP in February.

Malviya is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Banswara as a BJP candidate. The Congress is yet to declare a candidate for this seat.