PANAJI: Nearly 22,000 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise on Friday in the Panaji assembly by-election which will decide the successor to BJP stalwart and former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar.
The by-poll was necessitated following Parrikar's resignation as CM after his new assignment as Defence Minister last year.
The polling will begin at 8 AM across all the 30 booths.
In the fray are BJP's Siddharth Kuncolienkar, Congress' Surendra Furtado and two independents namely Samir Kelekar and Sadanand Vaigankar.
Joint Chief Electoral Officer Narayan Navti said there are no sensitive or hyper-sensitive booths in the constituency.
Besides the local police for general patrolling, a company of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has also arrived in the state for the purpose.
The constituency had witnessed 77.13 per cent voting in the 2012 Assembly elections whereas the voting percentage stood at 73.27 in Lok Sabha elections held last year.
The voters' turnout is expected to increase this time as this is a by-poll and enough awareness has been done about the duty to vote, Navti said.
Counting of votes will be held on March 16 at the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) compound near here.