A 41-year-old fisherman belonging to the Kavali Assembly segment won 100 grams gold in the luck dip held as part of the voter awareness drives organised by the district administration in the run up to the general elections.
Kandlagunta Malakondaiah, son of Vengaiah, was the lucky voter who got the first prize. He cast his vote at the polling station number 103 at Chenchuganipalem village in Kavali rural limits.
Malakondaiah’s EPIC card number is stated to be AP 18125061232 and his roll number in electoral list is 692. The total value of the prizes being given in this lucky dip is put at Rs. 7.28 lakh, which is drawn from the community social responsibility fund of the industries department.
Joint Collector G. Rekha Rani and trainee Joint Collector Imtiaz Ahmed, who conducted the lucky dip at the Collectorate on Friday, said that this was held for voters in Assembly constituencies where the polling percentage was found to be low.
Ms. Rekha Rani said that several novel voter awareness programmes were taken up in the past four weeks. They included a 5-K Run, signature campaign, publicity through stickers and posters and so on. Special musical programmes were also organised featuring film music director S.S. Thaman, who hails from Nellore district.
Voter turnoutStating that there was considerable increase in voter turnout in the election, Ms. Rekha Rani said that one of the reasons for lesser percentage in Nellore city and Nellore rural segments was the preference of many voters to cast their vote in their respective villages. A considerable number of population in the city have their votes in rural areas as well.
The officials said that the polling increased in Nellore city segment by 4 per cent, from 53 per cent in 2009 to 57 per cent in this election. The average increase in overall district is 5 per cent.
