Seemandhra polls: 37 mn voters expected

Hyderabad: Over 36.76 million voters, half of them women, are eligible to cast their votes in the second phase of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh May 7.

Chief electoral officer (CEO) Bhanwarlal told reporters here Saturday that all arrangements have been made for conducting free and fair elections for 175 assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats in Seemandhra (residuary state of Andhra Pradesh).

The CEO said 40,708 polling centres were set up for the second phase elections to be held in 13 districts of Seemandhra (four districts of Rayalaseema and nine districts of coastal Andhra).

As many as 12,740 polling stations have been categorised as critical. The authorities have made arrangements for live webcast from 23,000 polling stations. The remaining polling booths will be covered by videography, static cameras and micro observers.

Polling in two Maoist affected assembly constituencies will be held from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. In 10 other Maoist affected constituencies, the balloting will take place till 5 p.m. while in the remaining 165 constituencies the deadline is 6 p.m.

For parliamentary elections in Seemandhra, 333 candidates are in the fray while 2,246 contestants are testing their political fortunes in 175 assembly constituencies.

Bhanwarlal said 272 companies of paramilitary forces besides 110,000 state police personnel would be deployed. The number of security personnel has been trebled compared to elections in 2009.

Telangana and Andhra Pradesh will come into being as separate states on June 2.

The Election Commission is holding polls in united Andhra Pradesh. The elected legislators will be allotted to the respective states after June 2.