Chennai: With just eight days to go for the high stake RK Nagar bypoll, Chennai Corporation on Tuesday kick-started the distributing of booth slips to the voters of RK Nagar. The city corporation also allotted the electronic voting machines through randomisation and allotted ballot units and control panels for all the 258 polling booths in RK Nagar.
About 15 percent of EVMs are also kept ready and the poll staff members have been briefed about the logistics that has to be completed within next five days.
The distribution of booth slips will be completed by December 17. Before December 19, all the polling booths will be ready with the basic infrastructure and the poll materials such as EVMs, ink and voters roll will reach the polling stations on December 20, a city corporation official said.
Meanwhile, city police additional commissioner H. M. Jayaram also launched a two-wheeler surveillance patrol for RK Nagar. Twenty-one teams on bikes will comb the constituency round the clock. The surveillance will be more during the night hours and the squads will operate on a shift basis till the day of counting. Of the five paramilitary companies, three have already taken a position in RK Nagar and two more companies will arrive by the end of this week, sources said.
According to poll officials, so far, more than Rs 5.21 lakh cash and 500 pressure cookers have been seized, besides which 74 vehicles have been impounded for frequenting RK Nagar without valid permission. More than 300 CCTV cameras installed to nab those distributing cash for votes and freebies.
