The State election authority, Chief Electoral Officer’s office, has decided to create a database of employees deployed on election duties enabling them to exercise their franchise in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
CEO Vikas Raj said the election authority has decided to rope in services of 1.88 lakh personnel for manning the polling stations and look after the other election-related duties. “The staff are asked to give their preference of place where they will cast their vote. This will help us prepare the ballot papers for them,” he told The Hindu.
Police personnel, numbering around 63,000, will also be given similar option. First-level training has been completed for these personnel and second-level training will be held in the presence of observers. “Sixty companies of central forces have already arrived in the State and another 100 companies will join duties in due course,” he said, adding that he also held discussions with the DGPs of States where there will be no polling on May 13 to seek personnel for Telangana.
The elections are likely to see deployment of close to 72,000 ballot units, over 49,000 control units and 54,350 Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) across the 35,356 polling stations. Though the State has sufficient number of electronic voting machines as the Assembly elections were held recently, electronic voting machines (EVMs) pertaining to around 25 constituencies could not be utilised owing to the pending election petitions.
Accordingly, the Election Commission of India was informed about the requirement and the EVMs had arrived. The first level check of the units had been completed and the second level randomisation completed in the presence of political parties. They were being dispatched to different constituencies where ballot papers would be added and those would be allotted segment wise.
The election authority has decided to set up close to 250 auxiliary polling stations, especially in the remote and rural areas for the convenience of voters. Auxiliary polling stations are normally set up when the voter strength in the particular polling stations exceeds 1,500, but steps are being taken to set up these stations in areas where the number of voters is much lesser — around 250 to 300. “This is to make the voting process easier for those in remote areas, sparing voters the trouble of travelling long distances to cast their votes,” he said.
