Hyderabad: In a bid to increase female employees at polling stations and hike voter turnout, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to set up 'all women polling stations' for the Lok Sabha elections. As per the GHMC notice, only female polling staff will be appointed at selected polling booths across the city.
While there are 15 assembly seats in the Hyderabad district, the District Election Officer (DEO) Ronald Rose has ordered the administration to organise five centers for each seat, making it a total of 75 centres.
Accordingly, nodal officers have prepared a list of female employees. The high officials have articulated that arrangements should be robust and special attention should be paid to the facilities to remarkably increase the voter turnout in the city.
The Lok Sabha election to the parliament constituencies of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, and the bye-election to the Assembly constituency of Secunderabad cantonment (SC), following the death of its legislator Lasya Nanditha Sayanna, will be held in the fourth phase, on May 13.
Apart from Hyderabad, voter turnout has been poor in the past two years from Rangareddy and Medchal-Malkajgiri districts, as per the Election Commission of India (ECI) data. As many as nine lakh voters have been removed from Greater Hyderabad and 14 lakh new voters added, the ECI sources mentioned.
More than 1 crore voters from the Greater Hyderabad region will cast their votes this time. In 2023, Hyderabad witnessed significantly low voter turnout on the day of the polling for the elections to the State Legislative Assembly. The polling percentage reduced to 46.56 per cent in Hyderabad district, as per data on the ECI app.
The data shows the dip in voter turnout from 50.31 per cent recorded during the previous Assembly elections in 2018. Due to poor voter turnout in the last election, DEO Rose has pulled up his socks to increase the percentage this time by giving strict orders to contractors. He has also aimed to strengthen the tender system for election-related activities.
The need of the hour is to address 'systemic shortcomings' and take relevant measures to improve polling percentages and turnout, the DEO said.
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