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Friday, May 08, 2009
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Mapping for vulnerability

A. Srivathsan
Chennai

How the Election Commission assesses the sensitiveness of booths

Climate change studies, food security programmes and disaster management have one thing in common with the Indian Election Commission. All use vulnerability mapping as a tool to assess risks and come up with measures to mitigate it.

Moving away from traditional methods of assessing the sensitiveness of an electoral booth, the Election Commission now includes additional parameters to measure the potential risks and has put a response protocol in place.

“Critical booths are identified based on objective criteria,” says Naresh Gupta, Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu. “Booths with an abnormally high or low percentage of polling, large number of absentee voters, fewer Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) coverage and constituencies that are communally sensitive are categorised as vulnerable,” he explains. In addition, booths that have seen re-polling in the past and those that are located in remote areas are classified as sensitive.

In Tamil Nadu, vulnerability mapping shows that some 5,000 of the 52,167 booths are sensitive. Some among them are termed “hypersensitive.”

R. Sekar, ADGP (Elections) says security arrangements for polling are made in close coordination with the Election Commission. “These numbers [of sensitive booths] could vary depending on the situation and will be firmed up as we get closer to polling date,” he adds.

It is neither the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu nor the southern districts that top the list, but the western zone comprising Coimbatore, Dharmapuri and Erode districts with more than 2,400 sensitive booths that is the most vulnerable of the four zones. Chennai city and its suburbs have about 400 booths categorised as sensitive.

These numbers have a direct bearing on the amount of security deployed; the higher the sensitivity, the higher the protection.

About 114 companies of Central paramilitary forces (including 20 companies yet to arrive) will be deployed in the vulnerable areas on the basis of the mapping. This will be over and above the 95,000 security personnel, including 20,000 ex-service men, pressed into election duty. Security at each sensitive booth will be double that of a normal booth.

Senior police officials say that the security will be further reinforced with 4,000 mobile security parties and about 1,650 strike forces with 10 to 12 security personnel each headed by an officer. Each constituency will be monitored by a DSP, and every zonal Inspector General of Police will have one Central paramilitary force company in reserve for emergencies. Mr. Gupta says that the critical booths will be monitored through micro-observers and videography.

“We are continuously monitoring the situation and inputs regarding security threats to the VVIP candidates are factored into our arrangements. The election will be conducted peacefully,” says T. Rajendran, ADGP (Law and Order).

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