Sixty-five per cent of panchayats in the Rampa Agency in East Godavari district is believed to be prone to the disturbance from the Left Wing Extremism (LWE). The district authorities have been chalking out an action plan to prevent any untoward incident during the local body elections.
Speaking to the media, District Collector D. Muralidhar Reddy said, “As many as 78 panchayats (in the Rampa Agency) have been identified as LWE- affected. A request has been made to the State Election Commission to shift the polling centres in the six locations owing to the LWE activities.”
The Rampa Agency in the district has 121 panchayats under the jurisdiction of the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA-Rampachodavaram).
“A special helicopter is also being kept ready to conduct the elections in the LWE-affected areas. Conducting the two-phase election within a short span is a major challenge but the recent experience in conducting the general elections will stand in good stead,” the Collector said.
He said that 11 polling stations are completely inaccessible, 272 stations are hypersensitive and 282 are sensitive among the total 1,072 Gram Panchayats that go to the poll among the total 1,103 in the district.
Ballot boxes
The district has above 32.52 lakh voters excluding the urban local bodies. Ballot boxes (14,868) are being imported from Tamil Nadu and Kerala to conduct the local body elections, for which over 45,000 employees are being deployed.
On the other hand, the police have been entrusted with the task of preparing the action plan on the requirement of the paramilitary forces based on their intelligence. The district authorities have finalised 438 routes for taking ballot boxes for the local body elections.
