Amaravati, May 7 (PTI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Mukesh Kumar Meena on Tuesday said 70 per cent or 3.03 lakh of the 4.3 lakh postal ballot voters have availed the facility to cast their vote in the simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the state.
Of the 4.3 lakh eligible employees and voters who applied for this facility, the CEO noted that 3.2 lakh were employees, 40,000 policemen, 28,000 persons eligible under home voting category, 31,000 voters from essential services category and other sector officers.
“However, some employees could not make use of the postal ballot option due to various reasons and for them we have made spot arrangements at their respective facilitation centres on Tuesday and Wednesday,” said Meena, addressing a press conference at the Secretariat.
Meena observed that even those employees who did not avail the postal ballot facility until now need not worry as spot arrangements have been made with their respective returning officers.
In case police officials deployed for security arrangements for VVIPs are unable to cast their vote, Meena said they will be given an opportunity on May 9, the last date for the postal ballot process.
He warned that employees who yield to inducements while voting through postal ballot route will be dealt with in a stringent manner, which will include punishing both the persons bribing them as well the employees receiving the bribe.
According to Meena, four persons were arrested at Tadepalligudem in West Godavari district for distributing money to postal ballot voters.
Likewise, a constable has been suspended in Anantapur for allegedly going around with a list of employees and distributing money while a few persons have been identified in Ongole for disbursing cash through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) route.
Taking a serious view on this development, the Election Commission directed the local superintendent of police to conduct a comprehensive probe, which resulted in some preliminary information, identifying call data, bank transactions and eight employees.
Elections for the 175-member assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh are scheduled on May 13 and counting of votes will take place on June 4. PTI STH ANE
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