Polling in Nizamabad LS constituency smooth

Hyderabad: Polling Nizamabad Lok Sabha was held under special circumstances. With a staggering 185 candidates in the fray, there was talk of going for ballots initially, but Election Commission of India intervened and ensured that the polling process was held using EVMs with timely measures.

Polling was scheduled from 8 am to 6 pm in all 1,788 polling booths spread over seven Assembly segments. However, due to delayed mock polling in three polling booths, polling could not begin until 9 am. Presence of 12 Ballot Units, one Control Unit and one VVPAT were used in each polling station to accommodate names of all 185 contestants.

Presence of so many units in voting compartment created confusion for some of the voters. Suresh from Dichpally said that it was difficult to identify voting symbols and he was totally confused. At the time of Assembly voting, we voted on only one BU, but this time there were 12 BUs and hence the difficulty, he said.

Sayanna, an elder person said senior citizens had faced some problems in casting their votes. Checking VVPAT screen within seven seconds after pressing BU was also an issue, he said.

However, there were some others who said they did not face any problems while casting their vote. Candidates' names were displayed on each of the 12 Ballot Units making the job easier, they said. Some praised the Commission for making arrangements like drinking water, buttermilk and making doctors available at some places.

Meanwhile, CEO Rajat Kumar commented that polling in Nizamabad was held peacefully and successfully. He took the opportunity to congratulate everyone including RO, Special Officer, polling officials and staff, security and 600 BEL engineers for making this happen within a short time.

He said a total of 28,000 EVMs including BUs, CUs and VVPATs were used in Nizamabad election alone out of which only261 BUs, 55 CUs and 87 VVPATs had to be replaced due to technical issues.