The Hindu : New Delhi News : Delhi goes to the polls today

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New Delhi

Delhi goes to the polls today

Staff Reporter

Congress, BSP field candidates for 69 seats; BJP for 68

Counting of votes on December 8
13,390 EVMs to be used

NEW DELHI: Nearly 105.8 lakh people are eligible to vote for 69 of the 70 Delhi Assembly constituencies that go to the polls on Saturday. Election in one constituency, Rajendra Nagar, had been countermanded due to the death of the sitting MLA and BJP candidate, Puran Chand Yogi, and would now be held on December 13.

The elections would decide whether the Sheila Dikshit Government would get a record third five-year term in Delhi. Ms. Dikshit herself is contesting the election from the New Delhi constituency where she is facing, among others, Vijay Jolly of the BJP.

As for the BJP, it is going to the polls seeking to wrest power from the Congress under the leadership of its Chief Ministerial candidate Vijay Kumar Malhotra who is fighting from Greater Kailash, where he is pitted against Jitender Kochar of the Congress and Rajinder Gupta of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

The Congress and the BSP have fielded their candidates for all the 69 seats in Delhi that are going to the polls on Saturday, while the BJP is contesting 68 seats. The party has shared four seats with Shiromani Akali Dal, whose three candidates would be contesting on the BJP symbol and one from Rajouri Garden on their own. Besides, the Nationalist Congress Party is contesting 15 seats, the Rashtriya Janata Dal 11, the Communist Party of India five and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) four. There are also 352 independent candidates in the fray.

According to the Election Commission, which had announced the elections to the Delhi Assembly on October 14, polling will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Counting of votes will take place for the 69 seats on December 8. Counting for the Rajendra Nagar seat -- from where the BJP has now given the ticket to Mr. Yogi’s widow, Asha Yogi – will be held on December 15.

The Chief Electoral Officer, Satbir Silas Bedi, announced on Friday that of those eligible to vote on Saturday 58.8 lakh are males and 47 lakh females. The maximum number of electors is 2.46 lakh in Vikaspuri while the minimum is nearly 0.75 lakh in Delhi Cantonment. The average number of electors per constituency is about 1.53 lakh.

In all, there are 10,676 main polling stations and 316 auxiliary polling stations in the 69 Assembly constituencies with an average of 963 voters each. Of these polling stations, 752 are “sensitive” and 368 “hyper-sensitive”.

The voters of Delhi would be determining the fate of 863 candidates. The highest number of candidates is 25 in New Delhi and the lowest is three in Ghonda. There are 83 women among the candidates and as many as 10 of them are contesting in Ms. Dikshit’s New Delhi constituency.

For polling, 72,801 officers would be on duty and of them 55,412 would be utilised for formation of polling teams, 5,803 for deployment at voter assistance booths, 1,138 for deployment as micro-observers, 1,230 for appointment as sector officers and 9,218 would be kept on reserved.

Besides, more than 51,000 police personnel will be on duty, of whom 33,134 will be from the Delhi police, 9,000 home guards from Haryana, 5,000 home guards from UP and 4,000 home guards from Delhi.

Dr. Bedi said 13,390 electronic voting machines have been made available to the District Election Officers.

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