Pale by-poll today

NT NETWORK
Posted on 2008-11-26
PANAJI - A little over 23,700 voters would decide the fate of five candidates in fray when they record their votes in the electronic voting machines to elect their new representative on Wednesday at the by-election to the Pale constituency.
The candidates in fray include Mr Pratap Gawas of the Congress party, Dr Pramod Sawant of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Dr Suresh Amonkar (who quit BJP to fight the polls as an independent), Mr Jose Lobo of the Save Goa Front and Mr Rajendra Rane (Independent).
There are 30 booths in the constituency of which four have been declared as hypersensitive while seven others have been declared as sensitive. The electoral authorities have made adequate security arrangements for peaceful polls.
Earlier on Tuesday the polling staff, numbering 280, along with the electronic voting machinery and other electoral stationary were deployed at the respective polling stations together with the police personnel. The voting would begin at 8 a.m. and end at 5 p.m. A total of 30 EVMs would be used to record the votes in the constituency.
Each polling booth would have five polling officers including the presiding officer, besides police officials. However, each of the seven sensitive and four hypersensitive polling booths would have a micro observer.
A battery of senior civil government officials including the additional collector of North Goa, Mr Swapnil Naik, seven area officers, seven sector magistrates, two sub-divisional magistrates besides a number of senior police officers would oversee the polling. Mr Arvind Bugde, sub-divisional magistrate of Bicholim, is the returning officer for the constituency.
The Election Commission has made production of Elector’s Photo Identity Cards mandatory for those who have been issued the same while others can show alternative documents like passports, PAN cards, service identity cards (with photos) issued by state/central government or public sector undertakings, bank account passbooks (opened before September 30) with photos, etc.