Jubilee Hills Polls to Last One Hour Longer, Says DEO
407 polling stations set up in 139 locations, which will be monitored using drones.
Hyderabad: Hyderabad District Electoral Officer (DEO) R.V. Karnan on Sunday said that the polling time had been extended by one hour for the November 11 Jubilee Hills byelection and would end at 6 pm on Tuesday.
Voters will exercise their franchise at 407 polling stations set up in 139 locations, which will be monitored using drones. Out of this, 226 have been marked as critical, where paramilitary forces will be deployed. All video footage from all polling stations will be webcast.
The Hyderabad election authority has ordered that people who ordinarily do not stay in the constituency should vacate the area after 6 pm on Sunday, and ordered the closure of liquor shops, bars and pubs. Inspections will be done in hotels too to check for poll-related violations.
With the election campaign period ending, the election authority has focused on tactics used by political parties to lure voters, including distribution of cash, and online transactions will also be monitored.
Karnan urged the voters to come out in large numbers to vote and asked them to refrain from spreading unverified news. Hyderabad joint commissioner of police (law and order) Tafseer Iqbal urged the people not to gather within a 100-metre radius of polling stations and leave as soon as they cast their vote.
Keeping in view the 59 candidates in the poll, EVMs consisting of a control unit (CU), 4 ballot units (BU), and a VVPAT had been provided to all polling stations. For this byelection 561 CUs, 2,394 BUs and 595 VVPATs will be used. The election authority has deployed 40 ECIL engineers or technicians to meet the contingency if any.
There are 4,01,365 electors in the Jubilee Hills constituency, with each polling station having an average of 986 voters. Only 11 polling stations have more than 1,200 voters.
Help Desks are provided at all the polling station locations to assist the voters in addition to NCC volunteers for queue management. Mobile deposit counters are being opened at all the polling stations to facilitate voters to deposit their mobile before entering the polling station.