Udupi: District Administration has made elaborate arrangements for Zilla Panchayat and Taluk Panchayat polls to be held on February 20.
Government officials, personnel of civic bodies and teachers have left for their designated places for election duty. They will take their positions at their respective polling booths spread all over the district. St Cecily’s College ground which is the de-mustering centre was busy with officials carrying the EVMs in one hand and their baggage for overnight stay in another. All of them have been ordered to stay near their polling booth on the previous night and adequate arrangements have also been made for their stay.
Speaking to Mangalorean.com, Election Officer for Zilla panchayat Udupi taluk, Yogeshwar said that the district administration is all set to ensure adequate arrangements to hold free and fair elections. There are 7,93,523 (380030 – Male, 413471- Female, 22 -Transgender) voters in the district.
As many as 2,152 EVMs have been distributed and 188 are reserved – of which 92 are used for training purpose. The 2,152 power packs required for EVMs are distributed to the taluks. There are 936 polling stations – of which, 904 are the main polling booths and 32 are auxiliaries. There are as many as 55 are sensitive polling booths, 12 are hyper-sensitive and 26 are Maoist-prone polling booths. “The elections will be held from 7 am to 5 pm. As many as 77 nominees ( Congress – 26, BJP -26, JD(S) – 6, BSP-4, Independent – 11) are in the fray for the 26 Zilla Panchayat seats, while there are 233 candidates (Congress – 98, BJP – 98, JD(S) – 10, CPI(M)-12, SDPI – 1, Independent -14) for 98 Taluk Panchayat constituencies,” he added.
As many as 360 vehicles are given to the Revenue and Police Department to conduct elections uninterrupted.
Bhandarkars Arts and Science College, Kundapur, will be the mustering, de-mustering and counting center for Kundapur taluk. St Cecily School, Ajjarkadu, will be the mustering, de-mustering and counting center for Udupi taluk and Manjunath Pai Memorial Government First Grade College will be the mustering, de-mustering and counting center for Karkala taluk.
Additional SP Santhosh Kumar who visited the mustering center informed that all measures have been taken for the security arrangements during the polls. Around 936 police personnel have been deployed. In all 3 taluks the security arrangement will be supervised by ASP/DySP, he added
