Tirupati: Citizens over 18 can register as voters before April 14

Tirupati: “General elections scheduled for May 13 will be held in a free, fair, peaceful and transparent manner. All eligible voters should cast their votes on the polling day in their respective polling centres. The official machinery has fully geared up for the conduct of incident free polls”, assured Collector and District Election Officer (DEO) Pravin Kumar. Addressing the media along with district SP Krishnakanth Patel on the preparedness for the elections at the Collectorate on Monday, he said the notification for the elections will be released on April 18.

He said the last date for receiving nominations is April 25 while the scrutiny to be taken up on the next day. Candidates can withdraw their nominations before April 29 and the polling will be taken up on May 13 followed by counting on June 4. In the seven Assembly constituencies under Tirupati Lok Sabha constituency, there are 18,03,211 voters as on April 7, out of which 8,78,708 are male voters while women voters exceed this number with 9,24,321. There are 182 transgender voters in the district.

Also, there are 867 service voters, 278 NRI voters and 24,545 persons with disability (PWD) voters. The total voters include 6,594 voters in the age group of 85 plus years. The DEO said that those, who completed the age of 18 years by April 1, 2024, can still enrol as voters before April 14 and they can vote in the coming elections.

Saying that, no election related work was being entrusted to volunteers, he said that so far disciplinary action was initiated on 18 volunteers, one ration dealer and five government employees for violating model code of conduct (MCC). So far, FIR was filed on 203 seizure cases involving liquor, precious metals, freebies etc. Out of 510 complaints received through cVigil App, 390 were resolved and 120 have been dropped.

SP Krishnakanth said that the police machinery is well prepared to conduct the polls without any problems. The flying squad teams have been working already while four companies of central forces have reached the district. Station house officers have been participating in the ‘Palle Nidra’ programme to instil confidence among people and flag marches are being held in problematic areas. Out of 2,136 polling centres in the district, 671 are identified as critical centres among which seven are vulnerable.

DRO Penchala Kishore, DIPRO Balakondaiah, Additional SP J Venkata Rao were also present.