Central forces, 55,000 Telangana cops to ensure smooth polling

HYDERABAD: The Election Commission has made all the arrangements to ensure that polling starts on time at 7am in 16 of the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana. The commencement of voting was delayed during the December assembly polls due to technical glitches in EVMs and VVPATs.


In Nizamabad constituency, voting will start at 8am. However, starting the voting on time in Nizamabad will be a herculean task for EC authorities as mock polling and clearing of mock polled votes against 185 candidates will take at least an hour.

Telangana chief electoral officer Rajat Kumar said mock polling will begin as early as 5.30am on Thursday in 16 constituencies and actual polling will start at 7am and end at 5pm. In Nizamabad, mock polling will start at 5.30am and actual polling will start at 8am and end at 6pm. In Maoist-affected areas, polling will start at 7am and end an hour earlier at 4pm.

Kumar added the officials will ensure that polling starts on time and whoever stands in the queue before the deadline are allowed to cast their vote. Around three lakh staff — civil and police — have been deployed for the election arrangements across the state. “We have around 1.5 lakh polling staff, 20,000 volunteers, 145 companies of Central Paramilitary forces and 55,000 Telangana police personnel on election duty. If the voter has an EPIC card, but the name is not in the list, he or she will not be eligible for voting,” said Rajat Kumar.

The Telangana labour department has declared April 11 as paid holiday for industries, shops, IT and ITES companies. “If IT companies fail to allow their employees to cast vote and we receive any complaint, we will take stern action,” added the CEO.

Meanwhile, the state government and Centre have already declared Thursday as a holiday to enable people to vote. Ensuring that voting starts on time and there are no technical hitches will be a big challenge for EC officials. Sources from Election Commission of India said that all steps have been taken to ensure that the delay that happened during the assembly elections in December is not repeated this time.