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Election Commission asks Delhi to seal borders

Election Commissioner G V G Krishnamurthy today directed the Delhi government to seal the state borders by this evening and start preventive arrests in the wake of reports of entry of anti-social elements to disturb the assembly poll on November 25.

Krishnamurthy, who held a high-level meeting with Delhi's top civil and police officials this morning, told the media that such preventive steps were imperative to hold free, fair and peaceful polling.

More than 60,000 personnel have been deployed for the poll, he said.

The Election Commission has also requested the home ministry to release 20 companies of paramilitary forces immediately to further ensure incident-free polling.

Krishanmurthy said the EC had got confirmed reports that criminals, goons and anti-national elements had reached Delhi from neighbouring states, including Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab.

Strict instructions had also been issued to the state authorities to conduct checks at all entry points, deploy special police protection and intensify patrolling particularly in the 214 villages falling under the national capital region, he said.

The state authorities had also been asked to mop up all unlicensed arms and conduct raids on factories manufacturing unlicensed arms along the border to ensure fair, and peaceful elections. A total of 180 polling stations had been found to be ''sensitive''.

He said the number of candidates had fallen from 1,316 in 1993 to 815 this time which indicated that not many ''non-serious'' condidates were in the fray.

He said it was for the first time that electronic machines would be used in six assembly constituencies of Delhi.

He said electronic machines would be introduced in Sarojini Nagar, Gole Market, Minto Road, Jangpura, Delhi cantonment and Kasturba Nagar constituencies.

In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan too, electronic machines would be introduced for the first time.

To begin with, highly urbanised constituencies had been selected for the use of electronic machines, he added.

UNI

Assembly Election '98

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