Pune: With Maharashtra Assembly polls in the next month, the Kolhapur and Sangli districts administration have decided to distribute duplicate voter ID cards to nearly 5.5 lakh people whose documents were damaged or lost during floods last month.

In Kolhapur, over 340 villages were fully or partially affected by the unprecedented deluge after heavy rains of these 27 villages in Shirol, Hatkanangale and Karvir tehsils were damaged the most.
Kolhapur Collector Daulat Desai said, "Since the state Assembly polls are now approaching, we have decided to distribute duplicate voter identification cards to voters in these 27 villages. Over 1.5 lakh duplicate voter ID cards have been printed for distribution among these villages."