Hyderabad : In a groundbreaking move, home voting is currently in progress for three specific voter categories in Telangana’s Assembly elections, as confirmed by Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj on Thursday. This marks the first instance of the Election Commission of India implementing home voting, a system initiated two days ago. The provision is extended to three categories: senior citizens aged 80 and above, Persons with Disabilities (PwD), and essential services personnel.
As of November 22, a total of 9,386 voters aged 80 and above, along with 5,022 PwD voters, have utilized this facility. An additional 253 voters falling under the essential services category have also cast their votes. The option of postal ballots remains available for police and other personnel engaged in polling duties.
Facilitation centers have been established in each constituency, facilitating this new voting method. Vikas Raj reported that by Wednesday, 32,730 individuals had availed themselves of this facility. For service voters, electronically-transmitted ballots have been dispatched, with 9,830 service voters having downloaded the ballots and 275 making bookings to dispatch postal ballots by November 22.
Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj expressed readiness for the upcoming polling scheduled for November 30 in all 119 Assembly constituencies. Telangana boasts a total of 3.26 crore voters, with females surpassing males in numbers. Among the voters, 9.99 lakh fall in the 18-19 age group, constituting 3.06% of the total voter count, the highest ever recorded. The state hosts over four lakh voters aged above 80 and more than five lakh PwD voters.
Telangana will utilize a total of 35,655 polling stations, including 299 auxiliary polling stations, with 59,779 ballot units in use. The election authorities have printed 4,70,287 postal ballots and 8,84,507 EVM ballots, the excess being for potential tendered and challenged ballots.
Regarding security measures, Vikas Raj noted that while traditionally Telangana has not experienced significant law and order problems, approximately 65,000 state police personnel and 375 companies of central forces will be deployed to ensure peace during the elections. The CEO also highlighted the issuance of over 51 lakh new EPICs (Electors Photo Identity Cards) and the completion of the distribution of 2.81 crore voter information slips across the state.
