Hyderabad: Polling for the Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly constituency by-election will commence at 7 am on Saturday with voters all set to decide the fate of Congress veteran K Jana Reddy and TRS youngster Nomula Bhagath. While there are 41 candidates in the fray, the major fight will be between Jana Reddy and Nomula Bhagath.
The polling will conclude at 7 pm and counting of votes will be held on May 2, followed by announcement of results. The bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting TRS legislator Nomula Narsimhaiah in December last year. Narasimhaiah defeated Jana Reddy in the 2018 Assembly elections by a margin of about 7,700 votes.
The constituency, comprising seven mandals — Gurrampode, Tirumalagirisagar, Peddavoora, Nidamanuru, Madgulapalli, Tripuraram and Anumula — has an electorate of 2,19,745 voters, of which 1,10,838 are women. The polling on Saturday will be held through 346 polling stations including 108 ‘critical’ polling stations. Officials said considering the total number of 41 candidates, three EVM ballot units along with one controlling unit and a VVPAT will be used at each polling booth during the elections where each EVM ballot unit has the capacity of having names of 16 candidates.
All arrangements are in place to ensure safe polling. Over 5,000 polling staff and security personnel have been deployed to ensure smooth polling. The polling will be held in strict compliance with Covid-19 guidelines with voters required to wear masks and maintain physical distance at the polling booths.
The election authorities have made special arrangements for differently abled, elderly and Covid-19 patients. About 8,000 postal ballots have been issued and Covid-19 patients also can cast their vote during the last hour between 6 pm and 7 pm on the polling day. Each voter will be given a pair of hand gloves for casting a vote.
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