Single-phase polling for 175-member Andhra Assembly, 25 LS seats

Amaravati, March 16:  Andhra Pradesh will vote in a single phase on May 13 for simultaneous elections to the state Assembly and Lok Sabha, it was announced on Saturday.

Over four crore voters are eligible to cast their votes for 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats.

As per the poll schedule announced by the Election Commission of India on Saturday, the notification will be issued on April 18, April 25 will be the last date for filing nominations, scrutiny of nominations will be taken up on April 26 while the last date for withdrawal of candidature will be April 29.

Counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.

Of the 175 Assembly constituencies, 29 are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 7 for Scheduled Tribes (STs). Four Lok Sabha constituencies are reserved for SCs and one for STs.

Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Kumar Meena said the Election Commission prepared the poll schedule after taking into consideration all relevant aspects like climatic conditions, academic calendar, board examinations, major festivals, prevailing law and order situation in the state, availability of Central Armed Police Forces, the time needed for movement, transportation and timely deployment of forces, and in-depth assessment of other relevant ground realities.

The state requires 1,14,950 civil police personnel, 58 companies of Special Armed Police (SAP) and 465 companies of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) for the poll process.

He said the state has 4,09,37,352 voters as of March 16, 2024. They comprise 2,00,84,276 male, 2,08,49,730 female and 3,346 third gender. The state has 46,165 polling stations. A total of 34,120 polling stations are in rural areas while 12,045 are in urban areas.

Average number of electors per polling station is 887. Polling station locations are 27,612. The expected auxiliary polling stations are 219.

The poll panel has planned 179 polling stations with all women staff, 63 polling stations managed by PwD (persons with disability), 50 managed by youth and a total of 555 model polling stations.

The CEO said that to facilitate voters in knowing the serial number of the electoral roll in their polling station, date of poll, time etc., Voter Information Slips will be issued. This will have information like polling station, date, time etc. with a QR code but not the photograph of the voter.

Voter Information Slips will be distributed at least 5 days before the date of the poll to all enrolled electors, by the District Election Officer.

About the EVMs, Mukesh Kumar Meena said a total of 1,43,037 Ballot Units, 1,15,410 Control Units and 1,37,190 VVPAT will be used for the polling. A total of 3,82,219 employees will be deployed for the polling process. They include returning officers, assistant returning officers, electoral registration officers, assistant electoral registration officers, sector officers, sector police officers, micro observers, presiding officers, polling officers, booth-level officers and district nodal officers.

The Commission proposes to deploy 50 general observers, 115 expenditure observers and 13 police observers.

The CEO also revealed that the authorities up to March 11, seized cash, liquor, drugs, precious metal, and freebies worth over Rs 164 crore. He mentioned that the seizures during the general elections in 2019 were valued at Rs 75.2 crore.

The enforcement agencies will manage a total of 121 inter-state check posts - 40 with Telangana, 37 with Karnataka, 17 with Tamil Nadu, 21 with Odisha, two with Chhattisgarh, and four with Puducherry.