Hyderabad, Nov 9 (IANS) The Election Commission of India has made all arrangements for peaceful, free and fair polling for the byelection in Telangana’s Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency on Tuesday, officials said.

A little over four lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise at 407 polling stations, Hyderabad District Election Officer R. V. Karnan told media persons on Sunday after the campaigning for the bypoll came to an end.

A total of 58 candidates are in the fray for the bypoll, caused by the death of sitting MLA Maganti Gopinath of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).

Karnan said 2,060 polling personnel will be on duty. They include 515 polling officers and an equal number of assistant polling officers.

Keeping in view the large number of contesting candidates, Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) consisting of one Control Unit (CU), four Ballot Units (BUs) and one VVPAT will be provided to all polling stations. A total of 561 CUs, 2,394 BUs, and 595 VVPATs will be deployed.

Forty engineers/technicians of Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) will be deployed to meet any contingency.

The are a total of 4,01,365 voters in the constituency comprising 2,08,561 males, 1,92,779 females, and 25 others.

According to DEO, there are 6,859 voters in the age group of 18-19 years, while 2,134 voters are above 85 years.

He said 103 absentee voters (above 85 years and PwD voters) have exercised their option for a postal ballot, and out of them 101 have utilised the postal ballot voting.

There are 407 polling stations, located in 139 buildings. The average voters per polling station is 986.

Web casting for live streaming of the poll is arranged at all the polling stations.

Mobile deposit counters are being opened at all the polling stations to facilitate voters to deposit their mobile phones before entering into polling stations and to retrieve back after casting their vote.

The Election Commission has appointed 19 nodal officers for various election-related subjects. A total of 38 sector officers have been appointed to closely monitor the election-related events and to maintain law and order.

A district intelligence committee has been constituted with police, excise, income tax, narcotics, GST, transport, postal, aviation, commercial tax and LDM of banks.

Hyderabad Police Commissioner is deploying a striking force to arrange sufficient security at all the polling stations and mobile squads to monitor law and order.

The district Collectors of Hyderabad and Medchal Malkajgiri have declared that the day before the day of poll (November 10), polling day (November 11) and counting day (November 14) will be paid holidays for the offices/institutions, where polling stations and counting centres are established.

A total of 27 cases of violations of the Model Code of Conduct were registered. The poll authorities seized Rs 3.60 crore from October 6 to November 8.

–IANS

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