Telangana to have 35,655 polling stations; 1,500 voters maximum per booth

Hyderabad: The maximum limit to the number of electors per polling station in the GHMC limits has been fixed at 1,550 individuals while in the rest of Hyderabad, the maximum limit is pegged at 1,500. The total number of polling stations in the state is 35,655, informed M Satyavani, deputy chief electoral officer (deputy CEO) while addressing the media on Friday.

Furnishing other election-related information, the deputy CEO said that a total of 3,504 nominations have been filed by the prospective candidates from different political parties, out of which 606 nominations were rejected on various grounds.

“The number of accepted and valid nominations after scrutiny stood at 2,898. However, 608 nominations were withdrawn by candidates after which the total number of nominations was 2,290. A total of 299 auxiliary polling stations were approved by the Election Commission (EC), taking the total number of polling stations to 35,655,” the deputy CEO said.

The official also explained the various categories of strong rooms for storing functional, non-functional and reserve EVMs. She also explained about the postal ballots (Form 12D), which can be availed by service personnel and also by senior citizens of the ages 80 years and above as well as persons with disabilities (PwD). Senior citizens and PwD voters can cast their votes from the comfort of their homes through the mechanism of postal ballots.

24/7 Integrated Command and Control Room

Meanwhile, the office of the CEO of Telangana State informed that by using modern technology, they have set up an Integrated Command and Control Room (ICCR) in its vicinity to understand the ground-level issues in real-time, which will enable them to make the right decisions on time. This set-up will run 24/7, till all the election processes are completed.

The EC office is tackling a myriad of challenges such as violence, caste or religion-based issues, booth capturing, disinformation, cyber threats, low voter turnout, hate speeches, character assassinations, inducements etc, for which a centralised controlling system is required.

This ICCR is a collaborative workspace where the CEO reviews the situation in all the 119 Assembly constituencies in the state and takes decisions based on the information sent by ground-level teams in real-time and if necessary, with the consultation of ECI, New Delhi.

The monitoring includes operations of seizures, MCC violations, 1950 call centre complaints, campaigning issues under MCMC, c-Vigil, FST, SST, excise dept, police department, social media, Suvidha App etc. This also supervises 18 distilleries and six breweries in the state.

The monitoring of the situation includes vigil on inter-state borders, complaints received through emails etc. This control room is also monitoring 15 satellite TV channels and three YouTube channels. This is in addition to the control rooms managed by district election officers (DEOs) and returning officers (ROs), live webcasting, CCTV cameras, video graphing of the election process at various levels etc.