Mangaluru City Corporation polls: Voting today

The district administration has made all preparations for free and fair election to the council of the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) on Tuesday.

The polling will be held from 7 am to 5 pm.

There are 180 candidates contesting for 60 seats in the Corporation, including 82 women candidates. As per the revised reservation list announced by the government, 29 out of 60 wards are reserved for women. As many 18 wards are reserved for women in the general category, eight for BCM (A) women, two for BCM (B) women and one for an SC woman.

While the Congress has fielded 29 women in the reserved wards, BJP has 31, JD(S) and CPM have 3 each, SDPI 2, WPI and CPI have 1 each. In addition, 12 independent women candidates are in the fray.

The polling personnel on Monday reported at the mustering centre on the campus of the Rosario School at Pandeshwar, from where they left for the polling booths with the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and other materials required. As many as 24 rooms at the School was allotted for the mustering process.

There were 495 teams with four personnel each for polling duty. As many as 37 teams have been kept reserve in case of emergency. As many as 448 D Group staff have been deployed for polling.

Officer Gayathri Nayak said, “As many as 61 KSRTC buses and eight other vehicles were used to ferry the polling personnel from the mustering centre to the polling booths. Wheelchairs has been arranged polling booths wherever it was necessary. All the booths will have three rows – for men, women and senior citizens and sick – for the voters to stand in a queue to exercise their franchise.”

There are 3,87,517 voters in the MCC jurisdiction – 1,99,989 male voters, 1,87,465 female and 63 transgenders. There are 448 polling booths, with use of 601 ballot units and control units for polling.

Security

According to Commissioner of Police Dr P S Harsha, elaborate security arrangement is in place for peaceful polling. There are 75 critical and 373 normal booths.

Eight check posts have been opened wherein night picketing and patrolling will be carried out. One head constable and one Home Guard is deployed for critical booths, while normal booths have been given one police constable or a Home Guard.

Two DCPs, four ACPs, 12 police inspectors, 32 sub-inspectors, 511 head constables or constables and 193 Home Guards have been deployed.

In addition, five platoons of KSRP, 10 platoons of CAR and two units of Rapid Action Force have been deployed to maintain law and order.