: Mammoth rallies and roadshows marked the finale of the two-month-long campaign for the Assembly elections in the district on Saturday.
The rallies were accompanied by ‘pulikkali’, traditional percussion ensembles, ‘kavadi’ and many other folk art forms.
Minor clashes were reported from Kodungallur between the UDF and LDF activists. The police said a miscreant hurled a chappal at UDF candidate Anil Akkara at Wadakkanchery.
Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal attended the finale campaign in Thrissur. A huge posse of security force was deployed to avoid any untoward incidents.
Polling materials
Preparations are over for the elections to the 13 Assembly constituencies in the district on May 16. There are 24,87,686 voters in the district.
According to District Collector V. Ratheeshan, who is the District Election Officer, three are 2,027 polling booths in the district. “In all, there are 344 sensitive booths. Guruvayur has 37 such booths. Manaloor has 27 sensitive booths. Micro observers will be deployed in 94 booths. There are 197 webcast booths and 65 model polling stations in the district,” he said.
Distribution of polling materials will begin from 10 a.m. on Sunday. In all, 10,500 officials have been deployed for polling duty and 1,168 vehicles have been set up to take the officials to respective booths.
Voters Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system (wherein voters will be able to see the printout of the symbol of the candidate to whom he has voted) will be introduced in 105 polling stations in Thrissur Assembly constituency. In all 28 engineers will be deployed for emergency service if the electronic voting machines develop technical snag.
