The State Election Commission has directed the officials concerned to complete preparation of draft electors’ lists for the forthcoming elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation by November 7.
Notification for preparation of voters’ list was issued on October 31 and the draft voter lists would be published on November 7 while the final voters’ lists after corrections will be published on November 13. Eligible voters who did not register their votes before the deadline could apply online or personally to the deputy commissioners concerned before the notification for the election is issued.
State Election Commissioner C. Parthasarathy has directed the Commissioner GHMC to coordinate with collectors and other senior officials of the neighbouring districts in ensuring that elections were held in free and fair manner. Participating in a review meeting attended by the GHMC Commissioner and collectors of Rangareddy and Medchal-Malkajgiri districts on Thursday, he said the term of the present body of the GHMC would end on February 10 next year and arrangements should be made accordingly to complete elections for the corporation before that.
He said the additional collectors (local bodies) would be designated as deputy election authorities in the respective districts and orders to this effect would be issued immediately. In the light of COVID-19 pandemic, the officials concerned should take steps to ensure that polling stations were located in spacious buildings. Steps should be taken to ensure that a maximum of 1,000 voters are listed under one polling station and each such polling station should have a presiding officer assisted by three polling personnel.
In case of polling stations where there were more than 1,000 voters, an additional polling officer should be deployed on duty. The SEC said reservation of wards for SCs, STs, BCs and women made in 2016 would continue for the next election too and officials concerned should take steps to constitute mobile, static surveillance and flying squads with the help of the police. Steps should be taken to set up distribution, reception and counting centres in line with the COVID-19 norms and focus should be on enforcing election expenditure norms of ₹ 5 lakh per candidate.
