Chennai: Central paramilitary force will take over the security of all 256 R K Nagar polling stations and the local police will have no major role in the election process.
Based on the intelligence reports and in response to the recent DMK’s plea demanding the shifting of Chennai city police commissioner S. George, the Election Commission of India is taking several steps and is periodically ascertaining the field situation, informed ECI sources told DC.
ECI has decided to deploy a large number of central paramilitary forces to ensure that the by-poll to high profile R K Nagar assembly constituency is conducted in a free and fair manner.
“Usually three companies of CRPF will be deployed for a sensitive constituency, but for R K Nagar six CRPF companies will be in place and they will start taking possession of the constituency at least one week before the polls”, a top Election commission source told DC.
The company ranges from 72 to 120 personnel and this will help us to ensure that all the booths have paramilitary force. Similarly 307 micro observers will be on poll duty covering all the polling stations and the additional observers will be diverted for monitoring the poll expenditure, vehicle movement and poll violations, ECI sources said, adding that the local police will be used to assist the voters and also to provide an additional security cover to monitor miscreants and poll violators.
According to Chennai corporation sources, as many as 1,842 government staff will be deployed on poll duty and the training for the poll staffers are to commence by next week.
The first round of inspections to the polling booths had also been completed and in a couple of days, the counting venue will be finalised, corporation sources said.
IAS officer appointed as returning officer
In a major development related to the high-profile R K Nagar bypoll, the Election commission of India on Saturday recommended the appointment of an IAS officer as the election returning officer.
Subsequently, the district election officer D. Karthikeyan appointed Praveen Nair, deputy commissioner of Chennai corporation, as the returning officer for the R K Nagar assembly constituency. Nair replaces T. N. Padmaja Devi, joint director, directorate of adi dravidar and tribal welfare, who has been appointed as the returning officer last week.
It may be noted that Padmaja Devi was also the returning officer when Jayalalithaa was elected from the constituency during the 2016 assembly polls. P. Nair assumed charge as the new returning officer on Saturday. However, no official reason was given by the poll officials for changing the woman returning officer within a week of her appointment.
