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Madhya Pradesh by-poll: Every 3rd polling centre declared critical, heavy security in place
The BJP government’s fate hangs in balance as it locks horns with other parties.
With every third polling centre declared as critical, Madhya Pradesh is to witness by-polls in 28 assembly constituencies across 19 districts on Tuesday to decide the fate of as many as 355 candidates including 22 women, as per the Election Commission’s reports.
As per the chief electoral officer’s office, polling will begin at 7 am and conclude at 6 pm amid heavy police and paramilitary force deployment in all the assembly constituencies. More than 63.51 lakh voters are expected to exercise franchise across 9,361 polling centres in the 28 constituencies, 16 of which fall under the Gwalior-Chambal region.
Additional chief electoral officer, Madhya Pradesh, Arun Kumar Tomar said, “Polling will be conducted with full security arrangements and compliance with Covid-19 guidelines.”
He said, “As many as 84 companies of Central paramilitary have been deployed at the polling booths besides 2,500 special armed force (SAF) jawans, 10,000 police personnel from the district police force, 7,000 home guards and 10,000 special police officers.”
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“Out of the total polling centres 3,038 polling centres have been declared as critical and 358 hamlets have been identified as vulnerable. To ensure a free, fair and peaceful polling, 250 flying squads and 173 static surveillance teams are in place. There are 293 police check-posts. As many as 1,493 illegal weapons have been seized and more than 1.52 lakh licenced arms were deposited in police stations.”
Collector and returning officer in Indore, Manish Singh said, “There will not be any queue of voters given Covid situation as per instructions from the ECI. Instead, voters will be given coupons on entering the polling centres and a voter will be called to cast his vote in accordance with the serial number on his coupon. Besides, there will be separate teams of poll personnel to provide masks to voters, record their temperature and for sanitisation.”
He said, in a unique experiment, this time as many as 12 video films were made on 12 different subjects related to polling that the poll personnel would be able to watch anytime for any kind of curiosity or apprehensions about their duties. The poll personnel were provided with a QR sheet with a specific QR code for a specific video.
In an appeal to voters on Monday, through a video posted on his Twitter account, senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Jyotiraditya Scindia said, “I request you all to vote in favour of the BJP candidates and thus strengthen Shivraj Singh Chouhan government. Every vote cast in favour of BJP will contribute to making of a prosperous Madhya Pradesh and strong India.”
State BJP president VD Sharma, under whose leadership the state BJP is facing elections for the first time, also appealed to people to vote for the BJP on November 3.
State Congress president Kamal Nath said, “By-polls will be known as a different chapter in MP’s history. People will definitely give a befitting reply to those who betrayed them.”
By-polls on 28 assembly seats will decide the fate of the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government which has 107 MLAs in 230-member state assembly against the Congress’ 87, Bahujan Samaj Party’s two, lone Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA and 4 independent MLAs. One of the seats is vacant. Thus, the BJP will need 8 MLAs to reach the majority mark of 115 and the Congress needs to win all the 28 seats to get to the majority mark if these parties don’t need any support from other parties.
