Hyderabad, October 01: The election notification outlining poll conduct for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) that was to be issued will be delayed by a few more weeks.
The State Election
Commission (SEC) was to issue the election notification after Ramzan and Dassera festivities. But during a GHMC meeting held here on Thursday with the district officials and police authorities, there was no mention of the election notification.
The notification, now seems, will be issued after Deepavali festival with the police busy with the bandobust for the festival. With Swine Flu, Dengue, Chickunguniya and viral fevers also keeping officials on tenterhooks in Greater Hyderabad limits, SEC felt that it is prudent to delay the issue of election notification by a few more weeks.
The SEC officials also told ‘Expresso’ that several political parties are not ready to contest in the elections right now and wanted the polls to be delayed by a few more weeks.
SEC Commissioner, A V S Reddy also reviewed various aspects related to the arrangements made for the conduct of the forthcoming GHMC elections with senior officers of all Departments concerned.
Reddy reviewed the law and order arrangements and asked the police officers whether the process of identification of critical (sensitive and hyper-sensitive) polling stations and estimation of the special force that will be required have been completed.
The Commissioner of Police, B Prasada Rao stated that they have identified about 465 hyper-sensitive and 560 sensitive polling booth areas and 400 mobile police parties would be deployed on the day of poll to maintain law and order.
Reddy also reviewed other aspects like procurement of election material and printing of instruction booklets, identification and distribution, reception, strong rooms, counting centres, updating of electoral rolls in 24 Assembly constituencies in the jurisdiction of GHMC, appointment of polling personnel, setting up of polling stations, procurement of sufficient number of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), availability of sufficient quantity of indelible ink boxes and other issues.
GHMC Commissioner S P Singh has informed that about 28 centres have been identified as counting centres and 40,000 polling personnel’s data base is ready to be drafted for elections.
He added that 718 senior officers have been identified to be appointed as Zonal officers, besides another 700 officers would be appointed as micro observers for the smooth conduct of elections.
The final lists of polling stations has been published on July 21 and all arrangements were made for procurement of about 15,000 EVMs said the District Election Officer and Special Officer, GHMC M T Krishna Babu.
He said all the Returning Officers will be trained to familiarise them to their duties and responsibilities.
Additional DGP, A K Khan, Commissioner of Police, Cyberabad, S.Prabhakar Reddy, District Collector, Hyderabad Naveen Mittal, Joint Collector, Ranga Reddy, Sudharshan Reddy, Superintendent of Police, Ranga Reddy, Muni Swamy, and senior officers from the Departments of Municipal Administration, Commissioner of Printing and Stationary, ECIL officials and others were present.
–Agencies–