Expressing satisfaction over the arrangements being made for the elections to the Kakinada Municipal Corporation (KMC), State Election Commissioner N. Ramesh Kumar on Monday called upon the officials to ensure that a good number of voters cast their vote in the polling scheduled for August 29.
Addressing a meeting with the officials of the departments concerned, he wanted the officials to be cautious while implementing the model code and to ensure that the code was not violated at any cost.
“The coming three to four days are very crucial and we have to create conducive environment to conduct the polls in a free and fair manner,” he said, highlighting the need for close coordination among the departments involved in the poll process.
Polling stations
Explaining in detail the arrangements made for the polling to the Commissioner, Collector Kartikeya Misra said that 196 polling stations were arranged in different parts of the city, in which voters could exercise their vote from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
As many as 2,93,373 voters would cast their vote in the election and the average number of voters per station was 1,120. The poll process would be conducted by 216 presiding officers and an equal number of assistant presiding officers and another 723 election staff. The police arranged 12 check-posts and 37 pickets in the city after identifying 28 polling stations as hyper-sensitive and another 52 stations as sensitive. Over 3,000 polling personnel from the neighbouring sub-divisions would be deputed to the city on election duty.
Superintendent of Police Vishal Gunni, Municipal Commissioner S. Aleem Basha and other officials participated in the meeting. Later, the Commissioner inspected a couple of polling stations and advised the officials to make special arrangements for the convenience of physically-challenged voters.
