The Hindu : New Delhi News : Delhi gears up for the polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 15, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Delhi gears up for the polls

By Lalit K. Jha

NEW DELHI, APRIL 14 . The battle of the ballot in Delhi is all set to begin on April 16 with the issue of notification for the seven Lok Sabha seats from the Capital and by-election for one Delhi Assembly seat.

While the Congress is yet to declare its candidates for three Lok Sabha seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party one, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi, has made all preparations for smooth and fair conduct of polls in the Capital on May 10. More than 1.5 lakh personnel, including 40,000 security forces, would be deployed for the polls. They will do all the work right from setting up about 9,500 polling booths - some identified as sensitive and some hyper-sensitive -- to manning them on polling day and then counting of votes at 10 centres on May 13.

Nominations for the seven parliamentary seats, all held by the BJP in the dissolved Lok Sabha, can be filed by the candidates from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on every working day till the last day on April 23. The Delhi police have been asked to take special measures to ensure smooth movement of traffic at the offices of the seven Returning Officers during this period. While the nomination papers would be taken up for scrutiny the next day, the last date for withdrawal is April 26.

Following a fortnight-long campaigning, more than 87 lakh electors including over 49 lakh males and 38 lakh females can caste their vote on May 10 for the seven seats: New Delhi, South Delhi, Outer Delhi, East Delhi, Chandani Chowk, Delhi Sadar and Karol Bagh (the only Scheduled Caste reserved seat). The poll timing has been increased by an hour and now would be held from 7 in the morning till 5 in the evening.

For setting up of polling booths - about one third of which are in Outer Delhi -- the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the other civic bodies would deploy over 20,000 people including one chowkidar and one safai-karamchari per booth.

While the Election Commission has already procured the Electronic Voting Machines, the training programme for its officials is also being held. To clarify the Delhiites' queries, the Election Commission has for the first time decided to set up touch-screen kiosks at about half-a-dozen places in the Capital besides opening up a call centre (23918888), which would work round the clock.

Besides school teachers - who usually are the backbone of every election -- officials of the Central Government would also be deployed in large numbers on polling day. The Election Commission has issued orders for deploying four polling officers instead of three besides one presiding officer at all polling stations where the number of voters exceeded 1,200. In Delhi there are nearly 2,000 such booths. Four officers will man as many polling booths in the Moti Nagar Assembly constituency where a simultaneous by-election is being held.

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