Nizamabad set to create history with highest number of EVMs

Hyderabad, Apr 11: The Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency in Telangana is all set to get into the record books with more than 180 people in the fray for the 2019 Lok Sabha general elections.

The huge nomination had thrown up some challenge to the Election Commission as the electronic voting machines (EVM) can only be used when less than 64 candidates are in the fray, forcing it to go the paper ballot route instead.

But the Election Commission (EC) came up with a record 12 big-sized EVMs that will be used in each of the 1,778 polling booths there.

These 12 EVMs will be laid out in an L-shaped format inside every polling station and each machine will have a maximum of 16 candidates listed.

The ECI had to buy an additional 26,820 jumbo EVMs to accommodate the 1.5 million voters in Nizamabad, which is among the 91 constituencies that go to poll in the first phase of the elections in India today.

In a normal situation, the EC drafts 15 to 16 engineers in a constituency, for troubleshooting, whereas for Nizamabad it has kept as many as 600 engineers, Rajat Kumar had earlier said adding one helicopter would be kept ready in case any large number of machines had to be airlifted.

Over 26,000 ballot Units, 2,200 control units and about 26,000 VVPATs are being used for Nizamabad constituency.

Where did so many candidates come from?

In the field are 185 candidates, including 178 farmers who jumped into the fray to support their demand for remunerative price for turmeric and red sorghum and setting up of a Turmeric Board based in Nizamabad.

This is the highest number of candidates that ever contested a Lok Sabha election from a single constituency. A close second in the same election was Belgaum in Karnataka where 456 candidates contested.