Around 20,000 policemen including home guards, are expected to maintain law and order during the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council elections scheduled on August 22. In the election, 73, 88,256 voters will be exercising their franchise to select corporators from 197 wards.
The total number of wards is 198 but Bharati Ramachandra, a BJP candidate, was declared elected unanimously from Hongasandra ward in Bommanahalli assembly segment. Congress candidate Maheshwari’s nomination papers were rejected by the returning officer for submitting a false caste certificate.
Participating in an interaction programme organised by Bengaluru Press Club and Reporters’ Guild on Thursday, NS Megharik, commissioner of Police, Bangalore, said the cops have identified 1,700 polling booths as highly sensitive, 1,990 as sensitive and 2,863 as normal polling booths in the city. “We will depute one head police constable and one police constable at each of the highly sensitive polling booths, two police constables and one home guard at each sensitive polling booth and one police constable at each of the normal polling booths,” he said.
Security
Four thousand police constables and 7,000 home guards are coming to the city from other districts to maintain law and order during the polling day. “The police inspector of the respective police station will visit the polling booth twice on August 22. I know that conducting election to the local bodies is a tough job. We are taking all precautions to prevent any untoward incidents during the polling day,’’ Megharik added.
The police commissioner said that no major incident of violating model code of conduct was reported in the last 10 days. “The crime rate has also come down during the last three days but it is too early to come to a conclusion since today and tomorrow are important days for the candidates who focus on door to door campaign. We will take stringent action if anyone is found guilty of violating model code of conduct,’’ he said.
Vote Counting
Appealing to voters to G Kumara Naik, BBMP commissioner and district election officer said the training programmes for the staff on election duty was conducted successfully. “We have developed an app to facilitate polling data on an hourly basis. It is the first time such mobile app is being used for this and also to monitor polling trends at various highly sensitive polling booths. This app is uploaded on the mobile phones of returning officers,’’ Naik said.
Poll Timings
The polling will commence at 7 am and conclude at 5 pm on August 22. Re-polling, if necessary, will be held on August 24 between 7 am and 5 pm. The counting of votes will begin at 8 am on August 25. “We have made arrangements for counting of votes at 28 centres in the city,’’ said PN Sreenivasachary, state election commissioner.
Ban on Liquor
Sale of liquor across Bangalore is banned for 24 hours from 7 am August 21, the day before polling and for 18 hours on August 25, the day of counting of votes.
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