The district administration is gearing up for the second phase of the local bodies polls that will be held on Saturday. Elections will be held for 1,584 posts in five panchayat unions — Sankarapuram, Thiyagadurgam, Chinna Salem, Kallakurichi and Kalvarayan Hills and 5,010 candidates are in the fray.
A total of 4,90,095 (2,44,724 men, 2,45,270 women and 101 others) are expected to exercise their franchise in the polls.
According to Collector P.N. Sridhar, the five panchayat unions in the district had been divided into 66 zones and arrangements had been made to despatch polling materials to the booths on Friday. As many as 52 booths had been identified as vulnerable.
Additional police personnel would be deployed at sensitive, vulnerable and critical polling booths. Webcasting had been arranged at 52 polling booths while arrangements had been made to videograph the polling procedures at 49 booths. As many as 849 polling booths would be under CCTV surveillance, Mr. Sridhar said.
Meanwhile, the third phase of randomisation of polling personnel to be involved in the polls was held at the Collectorate on Thursday in the presence of Mr. Sridhar and general observer K. Vivekanandan.