There is two-tier security at the polling booths, with the Election Commission deploying paramilitary forces inside the polling booths, and Punjab Police outside.

The Central Para Military Forces (CPMFs) have been deputed at 3324 polling locations out of the total 13,000 locations, covering the sensitive and hyper sensitive booths. The highest deployment was done in ludhiana district having maximum 397 such locations. It is followed by Amritsar with 342 locations, and Jalandhar with 262.

“The state and district police teams have also been deployed but primarily for the outer security. They would remain present with the paramilitary forces too but as support teams,” said Punjab Chief Electoral Officer VK Singh.

Singh informed that the care has been taken that the police cop of the same area and constituency would not be deployed at the polling station of his constituency.

HUGE DEPlOYMENT OF POllING STAFF

Punjab CEO VK Singh said that around 22,000 polling parties, along with their security components, have already reached their respective polling locations. These polling parties comprises 1,14,798 civil staff and 47,355 security personnel.

He said that as many as 2778 locations have been covered with the video cameras, while 600 would be supervised with still cameras. 338 locations have the provision of web casting, as “internet connectivity was not possible in other regions”. Other than that, 9152 micro observers have also been deployed.

33K EVMs TO BE USED

Around 33,000 electronic voting machines (EVMs), and 43,000 ballot units, would be used “for uninterrupted voting”.  “To ensure that voting process undergo uninterrupted, 43 engineers from ECIl, and 11 from BEl have already reported in the State. Besides, two senior engineers have also been deployed at Sangrur and Jalandhar to meet any eventuality on electronic voting machine front,” he added.