Ten out of 15 Parliamentary constituencies going to polls in the fifth phase have already been declared as sensitive or ‘red alert’ constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, as many hardened criminals-turned-politicians are contesting the elections.
The State Government has taken special security measures to ensure another peaceful round of elections in this phase on Wednesday. The EC has made arrangements for deploying 1.43 lakh police personnel comprising of 261 companies of paramilitary force along with over 4,000 sub-inspectors, 6,350 head constables, 49,000 constables and 60,000 home guards.
Chief electoral officer Umesh Singh claimed that directions have been also given to all the Returning Officers that they must take feedback of sensitive polls by every candidate or their agents and take adequate measures regarding security arrangement so no reports of rigging could pour from anywhere.
EC also directed to deploy atleast one jawan of CPMF at every polling centre and where more than two booths are erected, five members of CPMF would monitor the smooth polling. To monitor the entire situation, 54 observers have been put into place by the Commission. ADG (law and Order), Mukul Goel claimed that foolproof security measures have been taken to conduct peaceful polling.
A total of 22 per cent of the candidates contesting polls in this phase of elections are of criminal antecedents. UP Election Watch, who verified the affidavits of 241 out of the total 243 candidates contesting in the fifth phase of elections, said 52 of them have criminal backgrounds with 42 having serious charges against them.
The Commission will have a major challenge over the security aspect as there are three or more criminal background candidates in many constituencies.
In this phase, the fate of many prominent leaders like Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, TV star and Rajya Sabha member Smriti Irani of the BJP, poet Kumar Vishwas (all from Amethi), BJP general secretary Varun Gandhi (Sultanpur), Union Steel Minister and Congress candidate Beni Prasad Verma (Gonda), UP Congress president Nirmal Khatri (Faizabad), and cricketer-turned politician and Congress candidate Mohammad Kaif(Phulpur) will be sealed on Wednesday. Prominent mafia-turned-politician are also contesting from here. Atiq Ahmed and Rizwan Zaheer (Shravasti), Mirtasen Yadav (Faizabad), Pawan Pandey (Sultanpur), Kalipmuni Kanwariya(Phulpur) and Jitendra Singh Babloo (Faizabad).
Altogether there are around 2.52 crore electorate in this phase including 1.37 crore male, 1.14 crore females and 1,446 others. There would be 25,965 polling booths in this phase.