293 sensitive booths in Capital

Close to 300 polling stations in the national capital have been identified as “sensitive” and “hyper sensitive” by Delhi Police, which will deploy Quick Reaction Teams (QRT) across the city to deal with any attempt to disrupt the Lok Sabha elections.

Close to 300 polling stations in the national capital have been identified as “sensitive” and “hyper sensitive” by Delhi Police, which will deploy Quick Reaction Teams (QRT) across the city to deal with any attempt to disrupt the Lok Sabha elections.

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“The police have forwarded a list of 253 sensitive and 40 hyper sensitive polling stations in the capital to the Election Commission,” Deputy Chief Electoral Officer (Delhi) J.K. Sharma said.

These figures are an increase from Delhi Assembly polls held in November last year when the police had identified 40 hyper sensitive and 226 sensitive polling booths.

A senior official with Delhi Police’s Election Cell said majority of the hyper- sensitive stations fall in East Delhi, North-East Delhi and Chandni Chowk constituencies.

These three constituencies together have around 25 polling stations in the highly sensitive categories, where security personnel will be deployed in abundance.

“We identify the polling stations on the basis of various parameters like whether it has a history of violation of model code of conduct or a history of law and order problem in polling station,” a senior official said.

Police are also taking a number of steps to ensure peaceful polling on May 7, which includes sealing of borders two days prior to the voting, deployment of QRTs and keeping a close watch on “use of muscle men”.

“The QRTs will be deployed all across the city. We are taking all precautionary measures,” the officer said, adding that the focus will be on border points and resettlement pockets. Police have also identified 14 entry points on the borders which are “very sensitive”.