VIJAYAWADA: Over 300 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will be used for elections in the five municipalities in the district on September 24.

A total of 2,86,128 voters will decide the fate of contestants for wards in the five municipalities. The number of voters in each municipality are: 1,12,646 in Machilipatnam, 21,223 in Pedana, 88,492 in Gudivada, 30,729 in Jaggayyapet and 33,038 in Nuzvid.

Training for polling staff

The district administration is making all arrangements for training the polling personnel in manning the EVMs during elections.

One EVM will be placed in each polling station and there are 271 polling stations in the five municipalities. In addition, 15 per cent of EVMs will be kept as reserve to meet any emergency.

As per the State Election Commission guidelines, the election registration officers are all set to delete names of about 100 people against whom non-bailable warrants were issued before February 2005. Superintendent of Police of Krishna district Chandramouli has already submitted the list of names to the election authorities concerned.

The municipality-wise number of polling stations is 109 in Machilipatnam (42 wards), 24 in Pedana (24), 74 in Gudivada (36 wards), 32 in Nuzvid (30 wards) and 32 in Jaggayyapet (23 wards).

Five personnel will man each polling station and a gazetted officer will be appointed as the presiding officer. There will be one assistant presiding officer and three others as polling officers. Mostly Government college lecturers will be posted as presiding officers.

The staff of municipal schools will not be asked to take up election duty.

Arrangements under way

The respective commissioners of the five municipalities are busy making arrangements for the elections. Gudivada Municipal Commissioner Ch. Sivaramakrishnaiah says everything is in place for the elections. The number of voters may increase slightly since the names given for inclusion in recent drive will be included in a few days.

Machilipatnam Municipal Commissioner P. Venkateswara Rao says that there are 56,005 male and 56,641 female voters in the municipality.

A drive is on to identify sensitive polling stations for taking additional security measures. Nuzvid Municipal Commissioner P. Satyaveni says that nine out of the total 32 polling stations have been identified as hypersensitive in the municipality. There are four more polling stations identified as sensitive.

The electorate consists of 16,287 male and 16,781 female voters.

Pedana Municipal Commissioner B. Esu Babu says that 27 EVMs will be required for the 24 polling stations in the municipality and there is no major problem on the security front.

Jaggayyapet Municipal Commissioner N. Simhadri Appanna says that all arrangements have been made for the election and there is a requirement for 36 EVMs in the municipality.

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