Fate of 677 candidates in 7 ULBs to be sealed today

Polling from 7 am to 5 pm; There are 84 hyper sensitive booths

The district administration has made all preparations for the conduct of free and fair ULB polls on Thursday. In all, 677 candidates are contesting for 189 seats in seven ULBs in the district and the polling will be held from 7 am to 5 pm.

Elections will be held for one city corporation, four town municipal councils (TMCs) and two town panchayats.

Addressing a press meet here on Wednesday, Deputy Commissioner N Prakash said of the 544 polling booths in the seven ULBs, 70  have been identified as sensitive and 84 as hyper sensitive. The MCC limits has the highest number of sensitive booths (31) followed by Bantwal (12), Puttur (10) Sullia (nine), Belthangady (three), Ullal (three) and Moodbidri (two). The authorities have classified the highest number of booths (61) as hyper sensitive in the MCC and behind it are Bantwal (11), Puttur (10) Moodbidri (three); Sullia (three) and Belthangady (two).
 
A head constable and a police constable will be deployed at sensitive and hypersensitive booths. A police constable and a home guard will be on duty at other booths. A videographer has been deployed to all the hyper sensitive booths to videograph the electioneering process, said the DC.

The DC said about 3,000 polling personnel have been deployed for the smooth conduct of the elections. This includes 47 sector officers and 68 police sector teams. As many as 32 sector officers and 47 sector police teams will be deployed in the MCC limits.

As many as 226 female candidates are trying their luck in seven ULBs. The break up of total of number of candidates with women in brackets is as follows:Mangalore City Corporation (243, 93); Moodbidri (77, 29), Ullal (93, 31), Bantwal (83, 27), Puttur (88, 31), Belthangady (38, 22) and Sullia (55, 24).

As many as 1,230 police personnel, 23 KSRP platoons, 6 DAR platoons, and 175 home guards have been deployed.

Voters

The total number of electorate is 4,63,791—2,37,809 women and 2,25,982 men. The district administration will use 84 buses, 22 jeeps and 27 maxi cabs for transporting the officials and EVMs.

To a query on EVMs, the DC said that the Election Commission has sent new EVMs to the district. All the EVMs have been checked. If there was any fault in the EVMs, the official in charge of the polling booth should send a message to the sector officers, who will be having additional EVMs.

The political parties are allowed to open a help desk 200 metres away from the polling booth.

The help desk should have only one table and two chairs. The use of party flag near the polling booth would amount to violation of code of conduct , said MCC Commissioner Dr Harish Kumar.

Additional DC Dayanand was present.