The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Naidu, YSR to fight `decisive' battle today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 26, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Naidu, YSR to fight `decisive' battle today

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, APRIL 25. Even as contestants continued with silent campaigning for yet another day on Sunday through door-to-door contacts and political parties through TV ads, election authorities gave final touches to the arrangements for fool-proof polling on Monday.

A little less half of the State's total electorate, 2.37 crore voters, will give their verdict in the second phase to decide the fortunes of 1,184 candidates in the fray for the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in two regions of the State - Rayalaseema with 53 Assembly and eight Lok Sabha seats and central and south coastal Andhra with 94 and 13 respectively.

The second phase will decide the political fortunes of several prominent leaders, including the Telugu Desam supremo, N. Chandrababu Naidu, in Kuppam, the Congress heavy weight, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, in Pulivendula, the Finance Minister, Y. Ramakrishnudu (Tuni), and the Union Minister, U. Krishnam Raju (Narsapur Lok Sabha).

Also in the fray are D. Purandareswari, daughter of NTR who is contesting the Bapatla Lok Sabha seat, and "rebels" like N. Ramamurthy Naidu, estranged brother of Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, who is trying his luck from Chandragiri Assembly constituency after quitting the Telugu Desam and the Congress.

Almost all the 1.75 polling officials left their respective constituency headquarters on Sunday evening carrying the electronic voting machines for the designated places for conducting the massive operation through 26,422 booths. Also, nearly a lakh of police personnel took positions with a special concentration on 35,000 odd places which were identified as sensitive and hyper sensitive in view of threats from Naxalites and faction leaders.

Five helicopter are being used for surveillance over the polling area, for meeting emergencies, if any, such as airdropping men and to ensure safe passage of the EVMs to the counting centres wherever required.

The polling will be held from 7 am to 5 pm. The polling officials will undertake "mock polling" on the EVMs for an hour from 6 am involving candidates and their agents to further clear their doubts about the efficacy of the machines.

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Andhra Pradesh