Stage set for West Rayalaseema MLC elections

ANANTAPUR

In a first, a ‘Jumbo ballot paper’ and a ‘Jumbo ballot box’ is being used at the 338 polling stations for the Kadapa-Kurnool-Anantapur West Rayalaseema graduates’ MLC polling to be held on Monday. The voting is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“Learning from the experience of such a jumbo ballot paper and box handled by polling officials in Telangana, we have trained the polling staff in all the three united districts,” said returning officer Nagalakshmi Selvarajan here on Saturday. The Jumbo ballot box measures 2X2X2.5 ft.

Making a demonstration of how to fold the ballot paper and put it in the box, returning officer and Anantapur District Collector Ms. Selvarajan said that 21 polling stations had been identified as critical (earlier called sensitive), or vulnerable and adequate security has been deployed there. There are 3.3 lakh voters for the graduates’ constituency and 68,000 only for the teachers’ constituency.

“None will be allowed to carry any object into the polling booth except the identity card and the photo voter slip. A violet colour sketch pen will be provided only which the voters should use to mark their votes,” she added.

The distribution of the ballot boxes and ballot papers in the Anantapur district will take place from JNTU College of Engineering here, which is also the counting centre on March 16.

No SMS, social media, advertisement or other forms of the campaign will be allowed by the candidates till 4 p.m. on March 13.