Congress candidates with leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh (second from right) in Berhampur. Picture by Gopal Krishna Reddy

Berhampur, Sept. 14: Electronic voting machines will be used for the first time in civic polls here on September 19.

Official sources said 526 electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been dispatched for the Berhampur Municipal Corporation and 17 notified area councils in the district.

“The number of booths in the 18 civic bodies is 448, and we have dispatched 10 per cent extra voting machines to each urban body to meet any contingencies,” said Ganjam additional district magistrate Lingaraj Rath, who is also in charge of the Election Enforcement Cell.Besides, the state election commissioner will shortly dispatch ballot papers, as a stand by arrangement, for the polls. Later, these will be dispatched to the respective election officers of the civic bodies.

The corporation’s election officer Sitansu Kumar Rout will hold a meeting of all the candidates or their authorised representatives at the government-run Industrial Training Institute on September 16. They have been asked to take part in a demonstration of the voting machines.

“We will enlighten the candidates about usage of the voting machine and clear their doubts,” Rout said. “There are 218 booths in the corporation area and all the 480 polling officers have been trained to use the EVMs during a training camp organised at Town Hall in the city on September 11. The corporation’s slum development officer Sangram Sekhar Panda trained the polling staff members,” he said.

“Of 218 booths, 109 are categorised as hypersensitive, 89 sensitive and the rest 20 as general. Around 20 platoons of police will be deployed in the city on the polling day,” said Berhampur superintendent of police Anirudh Singh.