Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) K. Vijayanand has said that tight security arrangements with 15 companies of the CRPF, the CISF and the BSF and 1,606 personnel from the A.P. Police has been made for the byelection to the Badvel (SC) Assembly constituency, scheduled to be held on Saturday.
Fifteen candidates are in the fray and the polling will be held from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters infected with COVID-19 can exercise their franchise between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Material worth ₹2.10 crore, including ₹1.08 crore in cash and gold worth ₹50 lakh, were seized in the run-up to the bypoll, the CEO told the media at the Secretariat on Friday.
Mr. Vijayanand said that 281 polling stations had been set up and the poll proceedings would be monitored by one general observer, one police observer and two expenditure observers.
A total of 380 VVPATs and ballot units had been distributed and 55 APSRTC buses, 15 mini-vans and five jeeps had been made available to 1,348 polling staff to reach out to all corners.
Webcasting
The polling process would be webcast from all 281 polling stations. Besides, 271 videographers had been engaged to keep track of the activity outside the polling stations.
The CEO said that 19 cases pertaining to violation of Model Code of Conduct had been booked and FIRs registered in eight cases. Nine non-bailable warrants had been issued.
Volunteers barred from poll duty
The borders with Kurnool and Nellore districts had been sealed to prevent the entry of outsiders into the constituency. As many as 145 sensitive booths had been identified and all of them would be under the watch of the Central security forces.
Volunteers had been barred from the election duty and polling activity to ensure that voters were not influenced. Three volunteers were dismissed for various violations.
