Atmakur Bypoll: Notification to be issued today

Nellore: Joint Collector MN Harendhira Prasad has been appointed as returning officer for the Atmakur byelection and he is going to issue election notification on Monday and the officials start accepting nominations from the candidates.

It may be recalled that the by-election has been scheduled for June 23 and the model code of conduct has been in force in the entire district from May 25. Officials are arranging 279 polling stations in the entire constituency to enable 2,13,330 voters to exercise their franchise.

Among total voters, 1,05,924 are men, 1,07,733 are women, 11 are third gender, and 62 are service voters. There are 4,981 voters above 80 years of age and special arrangements are being provided to them apart from using the postal ballot.

Nominations will be accepted up to June 6, verification of nominations will take place on June 7, time for withdrawals is up to June 9 and the election will be conducted on June 23rd. Counting of votes will take place on June 26th, according to the schedule.

The voters can use 12 types of identity cards as proof of their identity such as voters' ID cards, Aadhaar cards, bank or post office account passbooks, driving licenses and PAN cards, among others.

Further, the YSR Congress Party has announced Mekapati Vikram Reddy, brother of late Goutham Reddy as the candidate, and he has already started campaign in the constituency taking part in 'Gadapa Gadapaku Prabhutvam' touring in villages for gaining support.

Former MP Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy's nephew Bijivemula Ravindranath Reddy also announced that he would contest the election thus making the byelection inevitable. The TDP has resolved not to fight the election respecting the tradition of leaving the chance to the family members through unanimous poll.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP GVL Narasimha Rao also announced that their candidate from BJP-Jana Sena combine would also be in the fray. So, there would be candidates in the fray from ruling YSR Congress, BJP-Jana Sena, and few independents likely, according to analysts. In fact, rebel Ravindranath Reddy also initially announced that he would secure support from the BJP and there has been no such announcement till now from the saffron party.