The nomination process for Lok Sabha polls in Chandigarh parliamentary constituency has begun on Monday.

 As per the schedule, the last date of filing nominations is April 29 and the scrutiny of nominations will be done on April 30.

The withdrawal of candidature can be done by May 2. The polling in Chandigarh parliamentary constituency will take place on May 19 and counting is scheduled on May 23, a spokesman of UT Election Department said.

There are a total of 6,37,990 voters in Chandigarh, out of which 3,37,417 are male voters, 3,00,553 are female voters and 20 are others. A total of 16,215 voters are in the age group of 18-19 years, of which 9307 are male voters and 6908 are female voters.

The spokesman said that there are 597 polling booths in the city. As per the current assessment, only 212 polling booths have been found to be in sensitive category. The counting Centre has been setup in Chandigarh College of engineering and Technology, Sector-26 here.

To conduct free and fair elections in the Chandigarh parliamentary constituency 19 ARO’s, and 60 sector officers have been appointed. Besides above, in each sub-division four FST’s (Flying Squad Teams Total – 12) and four SST’s (Static Surveillance Team, Total - 12) are already operational, since the announcement of election. Moreover, four VST’s (Video Surveillance Team) and a Video Viewing Team (VVT) are also operational, the spokesman said.

Around 3000 polling personnel have also been appointed. One round of training has already been provided to all the presiding/ polling officers, and the second round of training has started from Monday at government home science College, Sector-10 and Government College, Sector- 42.

Further to facilitate the permission process, a single window permission cell has been setup in the DC Office. Additional Deputy Commissioner, UT, Chandigarh is in charge of the permission cell.

A district control room is already operational 24x7 from the date of announcement of elections. Any citizen can make a call to register complaint or request information on election matters, the spokesman added.

Notably, Congress has fielded four-time MP Pawan Kumar Bansal while Aam Aadmi Party has fielded Harmohan Dhawan for Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. BJP is yet to nominate its candidate for the city with sitting MP Kirron Kher and Chandigarh BJP chief Sanjay Tandon, staking claims on the ticket.