E-Paper
Allow women in veil to vote after proper identification: BJP
As many as 19,880 inspectors/sub-inspectors, 1,01,477 head constables/constables, 47,985 home guards, will be deployed to ensure free and fair conduct of the first phase of the urban local body elections on Thursday.
A day before the first phase of urban local body polls were scheduled to take place, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) requested the election commission that women wearing veil be allowed to vote only after proper identification.
“If women in veil cast their vote without proper identification, it will create possibilities of fake or bogus voting,” the party’s Uttar Pradesh general secretary Sanjay Rai said after leading a delegation to the election commission’s office.
“It is mandatory that all voters be allowed to vote only if they are carrying relevant documents permitted by the commission. We have also requested that adequate security arrangements be made at sensitive and extra-sensitive polling booths,” Rai added.
MANY DISTRICTS WITH SUBSTANTIAL MUSLIM PRESENCE
Out of the 37 districts that go to polls, many of them have substantial Muslim presence. These include Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Bijnor, Amroha, Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Agra and Firozabad. Out of the 17 mayor seats, the 10 that will go to polls on Thursday are Saharanpur, Agra, Moradabad, Firozabad, Mathura, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Gorakhpur and Varanasi.
VOTING IN DISTRICTS REPRESENTED BY TOP LEADERS
While Varanasi and Lucknow are the Lok Sabha constituencies of prime minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Rajnath Singh, Gorakhpur is represented in the state assembly by chief minister Yogi Adityanath; Rae Bareli is the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. Polling will be held in these regions on Thursday. Mainpuri, which was represented in the Lok Sabha by Samajwadi Party founder late Mulayam Singh Yadav and retained by SP after Mulayam’s daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav won it again in the bypoll caused by Mulayam’s demise, will also go to polls.
Elaborate security arrangements
As many as 19,880 inspectors/sub-inspectors, 1,01,477 head constables/constables, 47,985 home guards, 86 companies of PAC, 35 companies of CAPF, and 7,500 under-training sub-inspectors will be deployed to ensure free and fair conduct of the first phase of the urban local body elections on Thursday.
