Amaravati, Apr 8 (IANS): Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency (MPTC) and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) elections are underway in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, following a green signal from the High Court.

Polls are scheduled from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. while it is only till up to 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. in some Naxal-affected areas.

As many as 20,870 candidates are in fray in the MPTC and ZPTC polls. Nearly 2.46 crore voters are expected to exercise their franchise in these polls.

The state government has deployed 1.72 lakh government employees on poll duty across Andhra Pradesh in 27,751 polling stations. Out of these polling stations, 6,314 have been categorised as highly troublesome and another 6,492 as troublesome.

Elections started off smoothly in almost all the 13 districts of the southern state.

Kurnool district collector Veerpandian assured people to vote freely and called on them to report at 1800-4255180 if they face any issue.

He started monitoring polls from the control room set up at the collectorate, equipped with live coverage, police wireless sets, web casting and others.

Along with Veerapandian, superintendent of police (SP) Fakeerappa, joint collectors Ramasundar Reddy, Syed Khaja Mohideen, DRO Pullaya and other officials are also monitoring.

Out of 53 mandalams, 44 are going to the polls in the district on Thursday. Nine mandalams have gone unanimous in the MPTC and ZPTC polls in this Rayalaseema district.

Considering the Coronavirus pandemic, officials have made arrangements such as hand sanitizer, gloves, thermal scanners, PPE kits and others.

In Anantapur district, 62 ZPTC positions and 782 MPTC positions are going to the polls on Thursday in 2,665 polling stations.