NEW DELHI: Over 1.47 crore eligible voters of the national capital will exercise their franchise across 13,500 polling booths spread across 2,700 locations.
Like every other election, the police send a list of booths marked as “critical” to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The parameters for categorising the booths are decided by the police and later by the ECI.
For the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi on May 25, Delhi Police sources told The New Indian Express that a list of several such polling stations has been sent to the ECI.
After collecting data from various police stations, this newspaper learnt that the minimum number of critical polling booths in the New Delhi district is less than 5. For the southeast district, the police have sent a list of 53 “critical” polling stations.
The North East district of the city, which witnessed violent communal clashes just a year after the last general elections in 2019, will have around 255 polling stations, of which the police have marked 55 as critical.
Both Shahdara and North West districts have sent a list of 146 “critical” booths each. In the Dwarka district, where around 1,200 polling booths will be set up at 250 premises, more than 50 have been marked as critical. Similarly, around 38 critical booths will be in the North West district.
The figures are tentative and have been sent to the Returning Officer of the respective district, who will ultimately make the final call.
A senior Delhi Police officer, while speaking to this daily, said that there is a set of criteria on which they decide the sensitivity of a polling booth. “We usually assess it from the law and order point of view,” the officer said.
Delving further on the criteria, the officer said as per the ECI, the police stations with vulnerable pockets located in identified vulnerable areas are marked as critical.
“The polling booths where voting was more than 90% or where more than 75% of votes were polled in favour of one candidate in the last election or where polling was less than 10% are also in the critical category,” the officer said.
The areas where re-polling was conducted owing to vitiation of poll process and electoral offences such as booth capturing, during any election for Lok Sabha or state legislative assembly in last five
years or where any sort of violence took place on poll day leading to lodging of an FIR are first to be put under sensitive category.
Speaking on the deployment plan at the critical polling station, the officer said that two Head Constables and half a section of central paramilitary forces will be deployed extra at each critical premises in addition to the normal deployment plan of a polling station.
The cops are taking preventive action against liquor, drugs and arms mafias.
Rules for classification
Critical–Polling booths where voting was more than 90% or over 75% of votes were polled in favour of one candidate in last election
Or polling stations where less than 10% voting was recorded
Sensitive–Re-polling was conducted owing to violation such as booth capturing, during any election for Lok Sabha or state legislative assembly in past five years
Or where violence occurred on poll day leading to registration of FIR