With less than a month to go for the Hunsur byelections on October 21, the district administration, which was immersed in the preparations for Dasara, has shifted to the election mode and is gearing up for the smooth conduct of the polls.

In all, 2,26,920 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise and of these 1,14.146 are men, 1,12,770 are women and four belong to the third gender. There are 274 polling stations in Hunsur and 1,325 officials will be deployed for the smooth conduct of the elections. To implement the model code of conduct, flying squads, static surveillance teams, video surveillance and viewing teams etc. will be constituted and imparted training to ensure that there was no violation of the poll code, which is already in place with effect from Saturday.

The first round of evaluation of the Electronic Voting Machines will be conducted by the technical team of the BEL on September 24 in front of the representatives of political parties.

A mock poll will also be conducted to ensure that the system was fair and transparent. Deputy Commissioner Abhiram G. Sankar, who is also the district electoral officer, said a control room has been established at Hunsur [08222- 252040] and the public may contact them for assistance and seek clarification from them.

The ballot units, including the VVPATS, will arrive from Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu and will be guarded by the authorities at the warehouse in Hunsur.

The 1,315 staff to be deployed on election duties will include micro-observers while an additional 20% will be in reserve as a standby for any contingency.

As per the directives of the Election Commission of India, steps are in place to remove all posters, flex, banners, cut outs, flags, hoardings etc of political parties, local leaders etc from all all Government offices, buildings and also public places. The use of Government vehicles by political parties has also been banned which will remain in place till October 27. There is a ban on issuing political advertisements amounting to publicity consequent to the poll code coming into effect.