34,209 policemen and 26, 609 non-uniformed personnel will be deployed at the booths
Arrangements with the electronic voting machines being made in a polling booth at Ashok Nagar on Wednesday. (Photo: Deccan Chronicle)
CHENNAI: Anoop Jaiswal, Director General of Police (Elections), on Wednesday, assured safety for the people in the state and said that voters can fearlessly go to their respective polling booths and cast their votes.
Talking to this newspaper on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections, Anoop Jaiswal noted that the state-wide prohibitory order under section of 144 CrPC, will be taken off by Thursday morning 6 am. “People can and should freely go and cast their votes,” he said.
Jaiswal also noted that there would be no VIP treatment for anybody. “Only those who are entitled for special security cover will be allowed to take to their security personnel to the polling stations,” he said.
Senior police officials said that they had already made elaborate security arrangements for all the 60,818 polling booths in 28,224 polling centres throughout the state.
As many as 34,209 policemen and 26,609 non-uniformed personnel will be deployed at the booths on Thursday. At least 5,000 additional police personnel, micro observers will be deployed at the critical booths, along with web-casting facility. Across the state, 6,000 personnel of the swift action group also will be deployed to handle untoward incidents.
Apart from the state police strength, 14,000 personnel from paramilitary force are already deployed throughout the state in view of the elections. The police will also use the services of the newly recruited Tamil Nadu police special youth brigade members for election related work.
Blanket ban on mobile phones
Cellphones should not be carried inside polling booths and those who are in an inebriated condition will not be allowed near them, Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Kumar told reporters here on Wednesday.
The public need not fear and should come forward to exercise their democratic rights and all security arrangements would be made to ensure free and fair polls, he said. Cars will be stopped 200 m from the polling booths.
The CEO also reiterated that prohibitory orders were clamped to curb the bribing of voters during general elections. Many teams, besides flying squads and static surveillance teams, have been formed to prevent the movement of cash. Until Wednesday morning cash worth Rs 25,06,29,198 and non cash items worth Rs 27,68,11,829 were seized.
Special measures have been taken since Monday and additional teams in the form of 5,400 Zonal Parties were deployed to curb door to door distribution of cash. The effort helped to seize Rs 55,19,525 in two days only , the CEO said. During this period cases were registered against 111 persons and of these 17 were arrested. The entire process of seizure was videographed, the seized amount and other items having been handed over to the treasury. Similar efforts would continue on Wednesday night and all possible steps would be taken to address cash distribution, Mr Kumar added.
Meanwhile in Chennai, the corporation dispatched electronic voting machines and indelible ink to all the polling stations by Wednesday night. Amenities like fans, lights and provision of ramps had also been created in booths. The voting will be on from 7 am to 6 pm, official sources said.
Know your candidates through SMS
If you want to know the name of candidates who contest in your constituency or want to learn about the financial, educational and criminal background of all politicians, you can send an SMS to txtWeb, a cloud-based global platform which makes content available on any mobile phone through simple SMS, in order to create awareness among the voters and help them make informed decisions this election.
Those who want constituency-wise details about candidate can SMS @candidates to 51115. To get a peek into the financial, educational and criminal background of all politicians one needs to text @ministers. For latest poll-related news, election schedule and opinion polls, the text for the SMS should be @elections2014.
Users who want to test their knowledge with fun filled political quizzes and trivia could send @politicsquiz and @guesscd.
Commenting on these apps, Manish Maheshwari, managing director, txtWeb, said that a vast majority of Indian voters do not have mobile Internet connectivity and seek information about the candidates before casting their vote. These apps let the users access all necessary and relevant information through a simple SMS. The aim of these apps is to empower all Indian voters and help them create an impact during this general election.
According to Seshank, an IT technologist, these kinds of SMS-based applications would be of much use to the public as most of the 900 million mobile phone subscribers still use the old model cell phones which do not have Wi-Fi and 3G data connection.
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