Tirupati civic body set to have polls after 18 years

Tirupati: Following the notification issued by the State Election Commissioner (SEC) for the conduct of the municipal election in the state, the Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) is gearing up for the smooth conduct of the election, scheduled on March 10.

The election to the civic body was last held in 2002. In otherwords, the election is going to be held after a gap of 18 years. All these years, the civic administration was run by a special officer without an elected body. For one reason or another, all these elections were not held to the corporation of pilgrim city while it was held for other municipal towns in the state. The corporation has 50 divisions with a total electorate of 2,66,762 including 1,32,577 men, 1,34,133 women and 52 others i.e. women voters are more than men.

Addressing media on the arrangements being made for the successful conduct of election to the corporation, Commissioner P S Girisha said the model code of conduct came into effect from today following the SEC notification for the elections. The official working busily to remove all the banners, flexis, hoardings and also covering the statues of leaders in the city with covers and it will be completed by Tuesday, he said directing the officials strictly implement the MCC.

As per the SEC direction, he said the election process would resume from where it was stopped in February last year and added that the withdrawal of nominations will commence on March 2 and end on the next day and the publication of the final list of contesting candidates will be on the same day March 3.

Informing that polling will be held from 7 am to 5 pm on March 10, he said repolling if required will be held on March 13 and the counting of votes will be taken up on March 14 from 8 am. He said 324 candidates are in fray for the 50 divisions after rejecting 9

nominations in the scrutiny, last year. All the documents including total nominations filed, rejected and other papers are in safe custody in the corporation strong room which is guarded by the security along with CCTV cameras round-the-clock.

Besides the corporation staff of all wings, 2000 personnel from various government departments were allotted additionally by the district collector for the conduct of election, he said informing that the ward volunteers were kept out of the election works but the ward secretariat staff would be involved in the poll work.

Replying to a question, he said about 60 per cent of polling centres in the city came under the hyper-sensitive category while the police took up the identification of sensitive and hyper sensitive booths in the city and would complete it soon.

To a question, he said the poll will be held based on 2019 voters' list and those enrolled this year are not eligible to vote in the civic election in March this year. Girisha sought the cooperation of political parties and residents with the civic body for the smooth conduct of incident-free polling.