EVMs and other polling materials being transported from Virudhunagar Panchayat Union Office to polling stations on Thursday. | Photo Credit: G. Moorthy
Polling personnel and materials, including electronic voting machines, have reached the 1,895 polling stations in Virudhunagar district on Thursday ahead of the polling day for the Lok Sabha election.
Virudhunagar District Election Officer V.P. Jeyaseelan said 9,243 polling personnel, along with the EVMs, would reach the polling stations by late evening. Zonal teams were taking the ballot units, two per polling station, and one control unit and one VVPAT machine, with armed police bandobust.
The district administration has set up two model polling stations and two all-women polling stations in each of the seven Assembly constituencies — Rajapalayam, Srivilliputtur (Tenaksi Lok Sabha constituency), Sattur, Sivakasi, Virudhunagar, Aruppukottai (Virudhunagar LS) and Tiruchuli (Ramanathapuram LS).
“These stations will have all basic amenities and would have additional decoration to attract voters,” Mr. Jeyaseelan said. Besides, all the polling stations, where shade of trees is not available, would have shamiana tents to protect the voters from direct sunlight.
Each of the polling location would have wheelchairs and a volunteer to take elderly and differently abled people to the polling booths.
Voters aged 85 and above and the differently abled can seek vehicles for pick-up and drop facility by calling the election control room.
Similarly, free bus travel has been organised by the TNSTC for voters aged above 60 and the differently abled between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. on the polling day. The voters have to show their voter identity card or Aadhaar card.
Mr. Jeyaseelan said pregnant women, aged people and differently abled persons would get priority on the queues at the polling stations.
Around 8,000 police personnel, Central armed police force, home guards and ex-service personnel would be deployed for bandobust duty, and 141 vulnerable polling stations and four critical polling stations would have micro-observers deployed along with CAPF personnel.
Mock polling would begin early in the morning in the presence of polling agents. Then the data registered in the counting unit would be erased and the VVPAT slips would be removed before the actual polling.
Polling would begin at 7 a.m. and all those voters who turn up at the polling booths by 6 p.m. would be allowed to cast their voters.
Besides their EPIC card, they can carry any of the 13 documents with photographs like PAN, driving licence, Aadhaar card, passport, MGNREGA card, Unique ID card for the differently abled, bank passbook and pension document as proof of identity to cast their votes.
Voters can see for a few seconds the symbol of the candidate for whom they had cast their votes on the VVPAT machine. Engineers from BEL would be available to repair or replace malfunctioning EVMs.
Local bodies have drawn lines to mark 200 metres from the polling station on the roads to keep political party cadre and supporters of candidates at bay.
After the polling gets over, the sealed EVMs and the VVPATs would be transported to the counting centre set up at Virudhunagar Vellaisamy Nadar Polytechnic College and kept in the strongrooms.
Virudhunagar constituency
Twenty-seven candidates, including sitting MP B. Manickam Tagore (Congress), V. Vijayaprabhakaran (DMDK), Radikaa Sarathkumar (BJP) and S. Kaushik (NTK), are in fray in Virudhunagar LS constituency, which also comprises Tirupparankundram, Tirumangalam Assembly seats in Madurai district.
A total of 15,01,942 voters — 7,33,217 men, 7,68,520 women and 205 others — are in the constituency.
