Udupi: An 84-year old Mohammad Beary, casting his vote at Atharadi Government school at 9.30 am said, “Electing your representatives is important and therefore I will vote till my death.”

On Friday morning May 29, even as it drizzled in parts of the district, a majority of people were eager to vote, as early as possible. Around 23.5% vote has already been cast, that means out of 1210 already 285 voters have made their choice, which is very good beginning.

The entire Udupi district has in total 2,226 seats; around 4,759 candidates were in the fray in Udupi district including 2,082 candidates in Udupi taluk, 1,712 candidates in Kundapur taluk and 965 candidates in Karkala taluk.

In the district 837 booths will conduct election, staffs for the same was been chosen by a  randomization process and total 3 teams were sent with booths with police protection.

 May 29 evening same centers will have de-mustering. Earlier the mustering process was completed in Udupi, Karkala and Kundapura taluks here.

 In Udupi St. Sicily’s school, Kundapura Bandarkars College and in Karkala GCS English medium high schools were selected as the mustering centers.

Udupi SP, Annamalai examined all the  procedures and said that out of total 907 booths in the district- 131 are designated as sensitive, 59 hyper sensitive  and 54 in Maoist affected areas.

A total 1376 police men are deployed from the Karnataka, Kerala police , home guard and karavali kaval cadres.

Meanwhile, the district of Dakshina Kannada has also started voting. During the first phase, on May 29, polling will be held in 15 districts—Mysuru, Chikkamagaluru, Dakshina Kannada, Hassan, Kodagu, Mandya, Chamarajnagara, Udupi, Belagavi, Vijayapura, Haveri, Bagalkote, Uttara Kannada, Dharwad and Gadag.
 
During the second phase, on June 2, polling will be held in the remaining 15 districts—Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Ramanagara, Chitradurga, Davanagere, Kolar, Chikkaballapura, Shivamogga, Tumakuru, Bidar, Ballari, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Raichur and Koppala.