The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Sensitive’ booth norms broadened

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Saturday, May 10, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Sensitive’ booth norms broadened

B. S. Satish Kumar

Word refers to entire area housing the booth

BANGALORE: The definition of “sensitive” and “hyper sensitive” polling booths has been broadened for the three-phase Assembly elections. The first phase of polling in 11 electoral districts is on Saturday.

Now, the word “sensitive” does not refer merely to “polling booths”, but to the entire area housing the booth as security has to be provided to the total area that comes under the booth jurisdiction.

Earlier, security was being provided to only an area of 100 metres from the sensitive booth. But now, security will be extended to the total area of voters who come under the booth jurisdiction.

Normally, the polling stations are classified as sensitive and hyper sensitive based on the history of trouble and violence during the earlier polls.

However, now in addition to the history of trouble, several other parameters have been added to the definition of sensitive booths.

Listing these parameters, Ramanagara Deputy Commissioner Ponnuraj V. said the booths would be classified as sensitive and special security provided to the areas coming under them if they had registered a very high polling percentage in the previous polls (much higher than the average polling percentage of the district or the State) or if a candidate had managed to secure more than 80 per cent of the total votes polled in the booth.

The booths would also be classified as sensitive if they had a large number of minorities or Dalits.

Similarly, the home booths of the candidates would also be considered sensitive as the candidate would be having considerable influence in that area.

As per the above parameters, nearly 65 per cent of the booths in Ramanagara district had been classified as sensitive or hyper sensitive. The above parameters had increased the requirement of security personnel.

This had been taken care of by the deployment of central forces. Nearly, 70 per cent of the security in the district was from the central forces, he noted.

As many as 16 companies of central forces, each with 80 to 100 armed men, would provide security in the four Assembly constituencies of the district in addition to the State police.

Of the 1,000 polling stations in the district, about 520 would be manned by either static or mobile central forces.

Bogus names

Ramanagara, which is one of the smallest districts in the State, accounts for deletion of a huge number of bogus names in the voters’ list. About 2.5 lakh bogus names, accounting for 27 per cent of the total voters, have been deleted from the four taluks, while 40,000 names have been included.

The total number of voters has reduced from 9.33 lakh to 7.33 lakh after the deletion, Mr. Ponnuraj said.

According to him, most of the deletions pertained to those who had migrated to other areas, who could not be traced and those who had died.

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