Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT), which is witnessing polls after nearly two decades, is fully geared to go for elections slated for Wednesday.
With almost half the wards going the unanimous way, elections will be held only in 27 wards, divided into 131 polling stations, where a mere 1.40 lakh voters will exercise their franchise.
The authorities have drafted 197 each presiding officers and assistant presiding officers, besides 500 other polling staff, in all the wards. As many as 87 candidates are in the fray to test their fortunes. While drinking water, barricading, ramp and shamiana (shade for waiting voters) have been arranged at all the polling stations, the officials have specifically sought drafting of 1,500 policemen in the stations identified as ‘sensitive’ and ‘hyper sensitive’.
A huge camp was arranged at Sri Venkateswara Arts College on Tuesday where election materials were distributed to the polling staff, division-wise and polling station-wise. Webcasting is in place, which facilitates monitoring of every polling station at the click of a mouse. As the poll will be conducted between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., voters can walk into their respective polling station by carrying any of the identity cards viz., EPIC card, Aadhaar card, PAN card or driving license.
Similarly, municipal corporation of Chittoor and municipalities of Puttur, Nagari, Palamaner and Madanapalle are also going to polls. Collector M. Hari Narayanan appealed to the three lakh voters to exercise their franchise without fear.
