Officials gearing up for Apr 11 LS polls

Medak: Lok Sabha elections for 17 seats in the State will be conducted in the first phase on April 11. Sangareddy, Patancheru, Medak, Narsapur, Siddipet, Gajwel and Dubbak Assembly segments come under Medak Parliament constituency.

District Collector Darma Reddy will be acting as Returning Officer for the election. District officials are gearing up to conduct the election with the Election Commission announcing the schedule. The officials verified EVMs which were used in recent Assembly elections. They conducted meetings with representatives of political parties on voter list. The Collector held a review meeting with presiding officers, assistant presiding officers and police officers on Saturday in this regard.

He advised officials over precautions being taken while discharging poll duties and implementation of code of conduct. There is a polling center for each 1,400 voters in Assembly elections, but now officials took measures and ensured a polling centre for each 1,100 or 1,200 voters for Lok Sabha elections.

As a result, the number of polling centres have increased to 2,043 from 1,944 for Assembly elections.

Nomination papers for Lok Sabha seat will be received in Medak from March 18 with the announcement of notification. Returning officer will receive the papers. The officials are making arrangements at Collectorate in Pillikottal in this regard.

As the elections will be scheduled to be conducted on April 11, the officials are making plans to arrange EVMs, VVPATs, police force and others.

All political parties are getting ready for the elections, as part of it, the TRS party has been conducting preparatory meetings to give directions to the activists in this regard. Recently, TRS working president KTR addressed a Parliamentary constituency preparatory meeting in Medak to boost leaders' confidence. On the other side, BJP president Amit Shah has given directions to party activists at important leaders of five parliament constituencies meeting in Nizamabad. K Prabhakar Reddy of TRS is the sitting MP. Congress is also getting ready for the elections. All parties are taking the elections prestigiously and are striving hard to win the seat.