Tight security for Giddalur, Badvel byelection

By Our Staff Reporter

GIDDALUR (Prakasam Dt.), FEB. 18. All arrangements have been made for 1.26 lakh voters of Giddalur constituency to elect their next representative in the Assembly in the byelection scheduled for Monday. The voting will be held from 8 am to 5 pm. The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Vijakumar Reddy in December. The TDP fielded his widow, Mrs. Sai Kalpana Reddy, while the Congress pitted against her Mr. Mudiam Peera Reddy.

The Joint Collector, Mr. B. Kishore, and the Returning Officer, Mr. P. Prakasa Rao, who are supervising the arrangements, said in all 158 polling booths had been set up at 103 places. This election is going to be a ``no-paper'' one with the Election Commission of India deciding to use electronic voting machines. About 400 machines have been procured for the purpose. About 14 buses have been deployed to transport the personnel to their destinations. A jeep was used to send the material and men to a remote village in the Nallamala forest - Irusulagudem - which has a voter strength of 70.

The authorities have decided to enforce voter identification strictly as directed by the EC. The Superintendent of Police, Mr. Viswajit, said fool- proof security arrangements had been made by deploying adequate force consisting of seven officers of the rank of Deputy SP, 18 Inspectors, 43 Sub-Inspectors, 48 ASIs, 138 Head Constables, 226 armed reserve personnel and 100 Home Guards.

Our Cuddapah Staff Reporter writes:

The Badvel Assembly constituency in Cuddapah district is all set for Monday's polling for the byelections, necessitated by the death of the Minister, B. Veera Reddy, amidst tension prevailing in the aftermath of the detention of the CLP leader, Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, in Patha Thiruvengalapuram village last night.

The constituency has an electorate of 1,33,999 of whom 67,517 are women, constituting a majority while the number of male voters is 66,482. The voters of the backward constituency will have their first glimpse of electronic voting machines in 211 polling stations set up in the segment.

Police have made elaborate bandobust arrangements and deployed as many as 2,200 police personnel, as against 430 policemen deployed in the Badvel constituency in the 1999 Assembly elections. The police force drafted for the Badvel byelections is said to be equivalent to the policemen deployed in the entire district in the last Assembly elections. A DSP was made incharge of each of the seven mandals in the constituency.

Additional bandobust had been arranged at 102 polling stations categorised as hypersensitive. As both the Congress and Telugu Desam Party have taken the byelections as prestigious, the district administration and the police have taken all precautions to ensure a peaceful poll.

Meanwhile, over 40 MLAs and several former MLAs of Congress from various parts of the State and an equal number of TDP legislators and leaders are stationed at Badvel besides many Ministers. The District Collector, Mr. Adhar Sinha, and the Superintendent of Police, Mr. Govind Singh, were continuing discussions with TDP and Congress leaders at Badvel on Sunday evening, on the finalisation of polling agents.

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