Krishna admin gears up for polls

Vijayawada: District Collector Md Imtiaz on Saturday said the district administration has geared up to conduct the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections and 24,000 staff have been drafted for the poll duty.

He said that training classes for the election staff would begin on March 18 and receiving nominations from the candidates would begin on the same day.

He said 55,000 Form-6 applications were received by March 15, the last date for the enrollment of names in the voters list and final list of district voters list would be released either on March 25 or 26.

Addressing media conference at the camp office, he said that booth level staff were verifying 1.50 lakh applications pending for voters ID cards and added that voters ID cards distribution would continue as usual.

He said 18,000 banners, flexes and other publicity material has been removed in the district. He said a motor bike rally would be organised on M G Road on Sunday at 8 am to create awareness on the elections and casting of vote.

He said badminton star and Olympic medalist P V Sindhu will participate in the bike rally, which would be started at Indira Gandhi Municipal Corporation stadium and would reach Benz Circle and finally ends at Sub-collector's office.

The collector said intensive campaign is being made in the district to create awareness on the elections and importance of exercising franchise.

Sub-collector K Shukla convened a meeting with the officials on Saturday on receiving the nominations from the candidates.

She said the nominations would be received between 11 am and 3 pm only and nominations will not be received on March 23 and 24 due to holidays on Saturday and Sunday.

She said the last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 26 and added that only three vehicles are allowed during the nominations filing rally.

She said the candidates have to park their vehicles 100 metres away from the Returning Officers office.