Stage set for first general election in Telangana

The stage is set for the first general election in Telangana where polling to the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies will be held in the first phase on Thursday.

Over 2.96 crore voters will exercise their franchise in the 17 seats, 12 of which are general constituencies, three reserved for the Scheduled Castes and two for the Scheduled Tribes. This is the first general election to be held in Telangana since the formation of the State on June 2, 2014. The previous Lok Sabha elections were held on April 30, 2014 -- more than a month ahead of the appointed day for bifurcation of the erstwhile united Andhra



Pradesh.

The election will be conducted through 34,604 polling stations spread across the State with the election authority deploying close to three lakh personnel - employees, volunteers and police/armed forces – to monitor the peaceful conduct of the election. More than 1.5 lakh government staff, 145 companies of the Central armed forces, 55,000 State police personnel and over 20,000 volunteers in addition to the support staff like drivers and others have been deployed for the conduct of the elections. A majority of the staff reached their respective polling stations late on Wednesday evening.