Preparations are in full swing for the peaceful conduct of by-elections to 12 constituencies of the state assembly, scheduled for July 27.
The by-elections will see around 23.5 lakh voters exercising their franchise at 2,783 polling booths.
The by-elections were necessitated by the resignations of 10 sitting MLAs of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, and one of the Bharatiya Janata Party, following their objections to the Terms Of Reference of the Srikrishna Committee. One more MLA, belonging to the Telugu Desam Party, resigned and joined the TRS.
The Election Commission has made arrangements to video-graph the entire voting process on July 27 in Nizamabad and Warangal districts, by appointing 2,000 videographers. Each videographer will cover 2 polling station.
Apart from the videographers, 2,700 micro-observers will keep a watchful eye on the voting process. These micro-observers will be under the supervision of 320 zonal officers and as many route officers.
In a first, the zonal officers will be provided with 3G mobile phones so that they can transfer video footage quickly to the EC.
Voting will be conducted on ballot papers in 5 constituencies, due to the high number of candidates in those places. The EC has procured and readied 1,500 ballot boxes, and 20 lakh ballot papers are being printed.
The last date of submitting a list of polling agents of the political parties is July 24.