Drones will be used for the first time for surveillance in the upcoming Bihar assembly polls, according to a top election official. “Helicopters have been used in the past for surveillance, but drones will be used this time, probably for the first time,” R. lakshmanan, Bihar’s Additional Chief Electoral Officer, told IANS in an interview over the phone from Patna. He declined to give operational details about the drone usage.
The task of conducting polls for the 243 assembly constituencies across the 38 districts of the country’s third most populous state will be done in five phases - October 12, 16, 28, November 1 and 5. Counting of votes will take place on November 8.
lakshmanan said that arguably, the biggest challenges would be maintaining law and order, checking “use and misuse of money power”, the implementation of model code of conduct and “improving voter participation.”
About 4.89 lakh officials drawn from the civil side, and 6 lakh security personnel have been deployed to oversee poll preparations.
lakshmanan said till October 6, Rs.15.56 crore in cash and close to 5.34 lakh litres of liquor which had been confiscated. The liquor was being stocked for distribution before voting days.
According to him, money and liquor were the two area which threw up challenges as far as monitoring election expenditure was concerned. So far, the election office has registered 265 FIRs for these violations.
In comparison, Rs.6 crore in cash and around 5.78 lakh litres of liquor were confiscated during the 2014 lok Sabha election in the state, he said.
The other big challenge was over law and order. He said combing operations over the last couple of months in the 11-odd districts “where the Maoists threat is serious have fetched positive results”.