Tirupati: Voter slip, photo ID card must to cast vote in poll

Tirupati: The stage is set for the conduct of graduates and teachers MLC elections on Monday. The elections are being held to elect new MLCs as the tenure of sitting graduates and teachers MLCs from East Rayalaseema constituency comprising Chittoor, Nellore and Prakasam districts is concluded. Polling will be held from 8 am to 4 pm for which all the polling material has been distributed from the four revenue divisions in Tirupati district on Sunday.

District Collector K Venkataramana Reddy monitored the distribution process at the SPW College in the city and made several suggestions. He said the poll staff should stay at their respective polling centres on Sunday night and complete formalities from 6 am for polling to enable it to start from 8 am. There will be webcasting of the polling process at all centres which will be monitored by the Chief Electoral officer, Returning officer and district election officer.

Tirupati RDO V Kanaka Narasa Reddy, Corporation Deputy Commissioner Sunitha, retired joint collector Chandramouli, who is in-charge of training and other staff, were present. It may be recalled here that Tirupati district has 86,941 graduate voters and 6,132 teacher voters. A total of 62 polling centres were set up for graduates' elections in the district as against 37 centres for teachers MLC elections.

In addition, some auxiliary polling centres are there. From the graduates' constituency 22 candidates have been contesting while eight candidates are in fray from the teachers' constituency.

On the other hand, district police have made elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of polls. They deployed 2,000 police for security in the district. SP P Parameswar Reddy gave directions to the staff on Sunday and asked them to act in a non-partisan and effective manner. Police should not enter the polling booth under any circumstances.

At every polling centre, Police Act 30 and section 144 will be in vogue within 200 meter radius.

No voter should be allowed mobile phones or any electronic gadgets inside the polling centres and they are not allowed even to carry water bottles, ink pens, or any other liquid material. The SP said there were 138 polling centres in the district out of which nine are extremely problematic, 66 are problematic and 63 are normal polling centres. Additional SPs Venkat Rao, Lakshminarayana, DSPs Surendra Reddy, Narasappa, Katamaraju, Vijayasekhar, Murali Krishna, Ravindra Reddy, Nadna Kishore and others were present.

Meanwhile, CPM party workers have claimed that they caught some YSRCP workers, who were distributing money at Yashoda Nagar in the city with the help of volunteers.

CPM workers have recorded the incident on mobile phones. This has led to a conflict between the two groups with the CPM leaders led by Kandarapu Murali raising slogans against the ruling party.

In another case, an audio clip went viral in which a ruling party leader was directing the auto drivers of a particular stand to be present at a particular place by 7 am on Monday with clean shaved and neatly dressed allegedly to show them as graduates. It was heard that he has been warning them of dire consequences if they fail to follow the instructions.