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As the silence period began for the Jubilee Hills Assembly byelection on Sunday evening, GHMC Commissioner and District Election Officer R.V. Karnan announced that the administration has completed all arrangements for a smooth and secure polling process scheduled for Tuesday, November 11.
The polling will be held from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., with an additional hour permitted compared to previous elections. The Commissioner urged voters to participate in the democratic festival and to help improve the turnout, which has historically been low in urban areas like Hyderabad.
According to the final electoral roll, 4,01,365 electors are eligible to vote in the byelection. Of them, 2,08,561 are men, 1,92,779 are women and 25 are categorised under others. The constituency has 18 service electors and 123 overseas electors. A total of 1,908 electors are persons with disabilities, while 6,859 are first-time voters in the 18 to 19 age bracket. Senior citizens aged over 85 years number 2,134. There are 407 polling stations located across 139 buildings, with an average of 986 voters per station. The highest number of voters is at Polling Station No. 09 with 1,233 electors and the lowest is at Polling Station No. 263 with 540 electors. Eleven polling stations have more than 1,200 voters.
Because 58 candidates are contesting, each polling station will have one control unit, four ballot units and one VVPAT. The administration has a total of 561 control units, 2,394 ballot units and 595 VVPATs available. During the press briefing, Mr. Karnan explained that all machines have undergone checks and that ECIL engineers will accompany sector officers on polling day. “If any EVM malfunction occurs, we intend to resolve the issue within 30 minutes through standby machines that will be carried by sector officers,” he said.
Officials deployed
A total of 2,060 polling personnel have been deployed, comprising 515 Presiding Officers, 515 Assistant Presiding Officers and 1,030 OPOs, matching the entire requirement. Further, 19 nodal officers and 38 sector officers have been assigned, with 45 static surveillance teams, 45 flying squads, four video surveillance teams, four video viewing teams and two accounting teams monitoring expenditure and model code compliance.
Voters aged above 85 and persons with disabilities were given the option to vote by postal ballot. Out of 103 who registered, 101 have already exercised this option. The distribution, reception and counting centre has been set up at Kotla Vijaya Bhasker Reddy Stadium in Yousufguda. Counting will be conducted across 42 tables. Webcasting will take place at every polling station and CCTV cameras have been installed both inside and outside the premises.
“Drones will monitor the constituency throughout polling day to detect gatherings or suspicious movement and the images from drones are monitored in real time, and if crowd formation or unauthorised activity is detected, teams will be dispatched immediately,” said Mr. Karnan.
Police deployment
To ensure security and prevent voter intimidation, a three-tier arrangement has been put in place. Paramilitary forces will guard the inner cordon, State police the second layer and reserved police the outer layer, Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), Hyderabad Tafseer Iqbal explained.
The Hyderabad City Police, in coordination with election authorities, has deployed 1,761 personnel including DCPs, additional SPs, ACPs, inspectors, sub-inspectors, Armed Reserve Police, head constables, women constables and home guards. 73 sections of paramilitary forces, making up eight companies, have been stationed.
Mr. Karnan clarified that voter information slips issued to voters are not identity proof and only serve as a guide. “Voters must carry a valid ID like an EPIC Card or any of the 12 documents mentioned by ECI,” he added. Those flagged under the Absentee, Shifted and Dead (ASD) list will undergo double verification at the booth in the presence of the polling agent.
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