181 booths in TN critical, webcasting in 65 per cent of all booths: CEO

Chennai, April 18 (IANS) Tamil Nadu's Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo on Thursday said that 181 of the 68,321 booths in the state are critical and that proper security measures have been taken up in these for Friday's polling.

He said that 8,050 booths have been identified as vulnerable.

Webcasting of polling has been arranged at over 44,000 booths, which is about 65 per cent of the total number of stations.

In a press statement, the CEO said that the polling for the state's 39 Lok Sabha seats and the Vilavancode by-election in Tamil Nadu will commence from 7 a.m. on Friday and will end by 6 p.m., adding that those who are in the queue, as of 6 p.m., and will be allowed to vote.

He said that 3.32 lakh polling personnel have been deployed across the state, while 190 companies of central armed police force personnel have been posted for security, and about 1.3 lakh police personnel, including state police, armed police and home guards sourced from Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Telangana have also been deployed.

A total of 39 general observers, 20 police observers, 58 expenditure observers, and a special expenditure observer have been deployed in Tamil Nadu by the Election Commission.

Of the 950 candidates in the fray, 874 are men and 76 are women.

As per the CEO, there are 6.23 crore voters in Tamil Nadu of which 3.17 crore are women, 3.06 crore are men, and 8,467 are transpersons. Of the total voters, 10.92 lakh voters are in the age group of 18-19 years.

He also said that priority would be given to senior citizens, differently-abled persons, and pregnant women so that they need not wait for a long time in the queues, as per the guidelines issued by the Election Commission.

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