Polling today, 63 stations hypersensitive

Syed Ali Ahmed

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 25

The Directorate of Gurdwara Elections (DGE), Delhi Government, has declared 119 polling stations sensitive and 63 hypersensitive.

Among the hypersensitive polling stations is the Punjabi Bagh ward in West Delhi from where SAD (Delhi) president Paramjit Singh Sarna and DSGMC general secretary Manjinder Singh Sirsa are contesting the election. There are a total of 560 polling stations.

The DGE has made additional security arrangements and installed CCTV cameras at all polling booths to avoid any untoward incident during polling tomorrow. There have been incidents of skirmishes between supporters of these two leaders during campaigning.

Both sides had been levelling allegations of liquor distribution and assault against each other. Kirti Nagar ward, Rajouri Garden, Tilak Nagar, Lajpat Nagar and Kalyanpuri are also among the hypersensitive wards, an official of the DGE said.

He said videography of the entire polling exercise would be done to alert officials on duty. Helpdesks would be set up at 51 locations where four or more polling booths are made. Polling booths having 1,000 voters or more would have a waiting area for senior citizens and women.

The DGE, in a circular, also said efforts were being made to reach out to the Sikh voters by means of distributing voter slips to every individual. The purpose of voter slip distribution was to facilitate the Sikh voters in identifying their name in the voter list and location of the polling station.

The total number of candidates in the fray are 335 (SAD-46, SAD Delhi-46, Panthic Sewa Dal-39, Akal Sahai Welfare Society-11, Aam Akali Dal-9 and Independents-184). The total number of voters in this poll is 3.8 lakh. There are 46 wards. In the previous elections, the number of registered voters was 4.5 lakh.

SAD will make a comeback: Sukhbir

Amritsar: SAD president Sukhbir Badal has claimed that the party would make a clean sweep in the DSGMC elections to be held on Sunday. After paying obeisance at the Golden Temple with his wife, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur, Sukhbir said the Sikhs in the National Capital Region would cast their vote in favour of candidates with clean image who have been fielded by his party. He said the elections were being contested against forces inimical to Sikh interests. He added that rival parties were drawing support from the Congress, which "orchestrated the attack on the Golden temple and the Akal Takht". He alleged that Congress leaders were responsible for deaths of Sikhs in Delhi during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and a majority of the accused were roaming free. On the SYL issue, he reiterated that they would not allow parting away with the river waters of the state. He added that nobody would be allowed to dig up the canal. Harsimrat appealed to the voters of Delhi to vote in favour of the SAD. TNS