Delhi Elections: Over 1.33 crore electorate to decide fate of 673 today
NEW DELHI: Delhi will vote today; a total of 673 candidates are in the fray for the 70-member assembly, which is witnessing its second election in just over a year following a hung verdict in December 2013. Sixty-three contestants are women. Over 13.3 million voters are eligible to vote. Some 5.9 million of them are females. There are over 2.27 lakh first-time voters. While 9,369 voters are homeless, 311 are over 100 years old.
Today, there will be 11,763 polling stations in 2,530 locations. Officials said nearly 55,000 policemen and paramilitary personnel would be deployed. Delhi’s chief electoral officer Chandra Kumar Bhushan said his office was “fully prepared” to ensure a smooth election.
Security has been beefed up in the national capital to avoid any untoward incident during polling and to check misuse of money and liquor to influence voters.
As the number of critical polling booths has increased by 107 since the last Delhi assembly elections, the number of security personnel deployed has also gone up.
Police said that surveillance have been mounted over criminal elements and muscle men, a hawk-eyed vigil is being kept at the border check posts to check smuggling of liquor and trafficking of illegal fire arms, besides transportation of currency. Efforts have also been made to keep check on people coming to Delhi from Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon, who may cast bogus votes during the polls, sources said.
Delhi police is working in tandem with the police forces of Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to keep a check on these activities.Senior police officials are constantly reviewing the security needs and chalking out plans for peaceful conduct of elections.
All the polling booths which have been identified as critical and hypercritical will have two-layer security, one with state police and the other with Central para military forces.
The Election Commission has also taken elaborate steps which includes deployment of micro observers and installation of CCTV camera.Polling started at 8am and end at 6pm.
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Source:Timesofindia
