Ranga Reddy district Collector B. Sreedhar assured that carrying photo voter slips would not be mandatory for the voters to exercise their franchise in the first phase of general elections on April 30.
Instead, voters can carry any of the 11 photo identity proofs approved by the Election Commission like passport, driving license, service identity cards for government and PSU employees, bank passbooks with photos, PAN card, Aadhar card, MNREGA job card, health insurance smart card under the scheme of Ministry of Labour, and pension document with photograph.
About 45 lakh photo voter slips have been distributed in the district so far, Mr. Sreedhar informed at a media conference on Monday. There are a total of 53,48,927 voters in the district, distributed across 5,042 polling stations.
After the end of campaign at 6 p.m. on Monday, even bulk SMSes on behalf of candidates would be considered a violation of the code, and may be reported to the police. Permissions issued for campaign vehicles stands withdrawn and there is a ban on advertisements and interviews in the electronic media.
A total of 70,000 employees across categories have been deployed for poll duty in the district. Polling material would be issued on Tuesday from distribution centres of each constituency, after collecting which the polling personnel would be picked up and dropped at their respective polling stations.
RTC would ply special buses to remote areas such as Vikarabad, Chevella, Pargi and Tandur, from important locations in the city such as Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station, Jubilee Bus Station, Mehdipatnam, Langar Houz, Dilsukhnagar and Nampally, between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Tuesday, for the convenience of those on polling duty.
Photography inside the polling enclosure is strictly prohibited. Special ballot papers in Braille script will be provided to the visually challenged with the serial numbers against each contestant repeated on the EVM in embossed version.
A record number of 20,000 from the polling personnel have availed the postal ballot facility. About Rs. 22.56 crore was seized through vehicle inspections and show cause notices were issued to 12 candidates.
