Hyderabad all set for Lok Sabha polls

Along with Hyderabad and Secunderabad Parliamentary seats, by-elections for the Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly seat will also be conducted on the same day

Hyderabad:  Over 45.91 lakh citizens will exercise their right to vote at 3,986 polling stations across the city in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on May 13. Around 30,000 officials — 16,000 polling officers and 14,000 to maintain law and order — have been roped in to facilitate free and fair elections.

Speaking to media persons here on Tuesday, District Election Officer (DEO) Ronald Rose and Hyderabad Police Commissioner K Sreenivasa Reddy said all arrangements have been completed for the polls.

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Along with Hyderabad and Secunderabad Parliamentary seats, by-elections for the Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly seat will also be conducted on the same day

“Around 60 per cent of the officers who applied for postal ballot have cast their votes at the three voter facilitation centres. Out of the 571 who opted for home voting, 532 have already cast votes. If officers have missed, we will keep the centres open on May 9 and 10, for home voting we will do one more attempt on May 8,” said the DEO.

With the voter turnout being a mere 48 per cent in the recent Assembly polls and around 45 per cent for the 2019 Parliamentary elections, authorities have scaled up the awareness activities and are providing all basic facilities at polling centres.

Senior citizens and PwD persons can apply for cab service through Saksham app and voters can also check the number of people in the queue on the GHMC website. There are 383 critical polling stations in the city in terms of law and order — 224 in Hyderabad, 144 in Secunderabad, and 15 in Medchal-Malkajgiri.

Another 663 are categorised as critical based on other polling challenges like Absentee, Shifted, and Dead (ASD) Voters’ List