Poll officials leaving for the assigned polling stations after collecting voting materials from a distribution centre at Malabar Christian College, Kozhikode, on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: K. Ragesh
With the voting for the Lok Sabha polls expected to begin at 7 a.m. on Friday, as many as 2,248 polling booths have been set up across Kozhikode and Vadakara segments in Kozhikode district.
According to official sources, mock polls will be held in the presence of polling agents of respective candidates by 5.30 a.m. A minimum of 50 votes will be polled in the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines. Presiding officers are supposed to record each votes that the candidates get. Later, they will be matched with the votes recorded in the control unit and the mock poll slips recorded in the VVPAT machines. The mock poll data will be subsequently erased from the control unit. Then the voting machines will be sealed again for actual polling. Alternative arrangements have been made to address possible machine malfunctioning.
District Police Chief (Kozhikode City) Rajpal Meena reviewing security arrangements at a voting material distribution centre in Kozhikode on Thursday.
| Photo Credit:
K. Ragesh
The voting will be allowed till 6 p.m. If the process does not get over by then, the voters who reach the polling booth till 6 p.m. will be given tokens and allowed to vote. The voting machines will be thereafter shifted to the counting centres at JDT Islam campus at Vellimadukunnu in Kozhikode city.
Meanwhile, it was a day of silent campaigning for candidates of the Left Democratic Front (LDF), United Democratic Front (UDF) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Thursday.
K.K. Shailaja, LDF candidate from Vadakara, was in Koothuparamba Assembly constituency as she spent her time talking to voters over phone. Elamaram Kareem, LDF candidate from Kozhikode, visited houses and a couple of convents in Kozhikode city. Shafi Parambil, UDF candidate from Vadakara, was in Vadakara on the day. M.K. Raghavan, UDF candidate from Kozhikode, visited Guruvayoor Temple in the morning. Later, he visited different places in Balussery, Kottur, Kunnamangalam, Chathamangalam, and Koduvally. M.T. Ramesh, NDA candidate from Kozhikode, visited the house of writer Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, and the late actor Mamukoya in Beypore.
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