Over to the voter now: Telangana all set for crucial Assembly poll

The State will have about 3.26 crore voters lining up in front of 35,655 polling stations to choose their representatives from 2,290 candidates in 119 constituencies.

Hyderabad: After an electrifying campaigning that bordered on the acerbic by stars of the political arena, the stage is now set for the most important star in the democratic setup – the voter – to head to the polling booth on Thursday to decide Telangana’s future.

The State will have about 3.26 crore voters lining up in front of 35,655 polling stations to choose their representatives from 2,290 candidates in 119 constituencies.

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While the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi will be looking to retain power and as many MLAs as possible from its current strength of 104 in the Assembly, its main rival is the Congress, which is looking to increase its tally from five while the BJP will be hoping to build on its existing strength of three. The AIMIM currently has seven MLAs.

The Election Commission of India’s arrangements for polling include 1.85 lakh polling personnel and 22,000 micro observers to monitor the polling process. Security will be provided by a total of 45,000 personnel from the State, 3,000 from other departments, 50 companies of Telangana State Special Police (TSSP) and 375 companies of Central Paramilitary forces. About 23,500 home guards from neighbouring States will also be on duty.

Polling will be held from 7 am to 5 pm in 106 constituencies and from 7 am to 4 pm in 13 Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas. A total of 72,931 ballot units or EVMs have been arranged, out of which 59,779 will be deployed at polling stations. The rest will be kept in reserve.

Telangana has a total of 3,26,02,799 voters, including 1,62,98,418 men, 1,63,01,705 women and 2,676 transgenders. There are 15,406 service voters and 2,944 NRI voters. The number of voters in the age group of 18-19 is 9,99,667. A total of 2,290 candidates including 221 women and one transgender are in the fray.

According to officials, four EVMs will be used at each polling station in LB Nagar constituency, which has the highest number of candidates AT 48. Nine constituencies will have three EVMs at each of the polling stations. Three EVMs will be deployed at polling centres in Kamareddy, where Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and TPCC president A. Revanth Reddy are among 39 candidates.

While the BRS is contesting all 119 seats on its own, the Congress has set aside one seat for the Communist Party of India (CPI). The BJP has fielded candidates in 111 constituencies and left the remaining eight for Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party (JSP), The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is also contesting all the seats on its own, while the AIMIM has fielded candidates in nine constituencies, all in Hyderabad.

While web casting has been arranged at 27,094 polling stations, special arrangements for persons with disabilities (PwD) have been made with 21,686 wheel chairs. For the visually challenged, the authorities have printed 76,532 voter slips and 40,000 dummy ballot papers in Braille. Transport arrangements will also be made for senior citizens aged above 80 and PwD voters. To increase the polling percentage, the poll authorities have set up 644 model polling stations. These include 120 polling stations for PwD voters and 597 women-managed polling stations. The counting of votes will be on December 3.