With the prestige of Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, who is the Chief Minister of UP, at stake and apprehensions of Bharatiya Janata Party and Bahujan Samaj Party of rigging in the ruling party bastion, the Election Commission has made elaborate security arrangements in all the 12 parliamentary constituencies going to polls in 15 districts of the state on Thursday.
Over 1.30 lakh security personnel, including 243 companies of reserved forces, have been deployed to ensure free and fair election.As in the first two phases of polls in UP, the Election Commission has taken all necessary measures to ensure high polling percentage.The tightest security has been made in Agra district, where 27 companies of central para-military forces (CPMF) and 8 companies of PAC along with 760 sub-inspectors, 800 head-constables and 6,000 constables along with 8,000 jawans of Home Guards have been deployed.
In Firozabad district, a total of 13 companies of CPMF, 5 of PAC, 325 S-Is, 365 HCs and 3,650 constables have been deployed along with 4,275 home guards to assist the local police.To conduct smooth polling in Hardoi, 12 companies of CPMF, 5 of PAC, 255 SIs, 400 HCs, 3,560 constables besides 4,000 home guards have been deployed there.Similarly in Etawah, Farrukhabad and Kannauj districts, where Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law is also in the poll fray from Kannauj, 10 companies of CPMF, 4 of PAC, 250 S-Is, 275 HCs and 3,000 constables along with 3,250 home guards would man polling centres as well as routes leading to them.
In Etah, from where Kalyan Singh’s son Rajveer is contesting, 15 companies of reserved forces, including 11 of CPMF, will be accompanied by 225 S-Is, 230 HCs, 3,200 constables and 3300 home guards.Similar deployment has been made in Kanpur Nagar, which covers a big part of Akbarpur parliamentary constituency. Eight companies of CPMF, 3 of PAC, 170 S-Is, 205 HCs, 2,260 constables and 2,430 constables will ensure free and peaceful polling there.
In Mainpuri, from where Mulayam Singh Yadav and Swami Prasad Maurya’s daughter are contesting, 17 companies of reserved forces which include 12 companies of CPMF, have been deployed along with 210 S-Is, 180 HCs, 3,515 constables and 3,500 home guards.In Mathura, where Rashtriya lok Dal chief Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Chaudhary is locked in a tough fight with Bollywood’s Bream Girl Hema Malini, 14 companies of CPMF, 5 of PAC along with 400 S-Is, 375 HCs, 3,500 constables and 4,200 home guards have been deployed to maintain peace.
In Kasganj and Auraiya, 11 companies of reserved force have been deployed in each districts along with over 5,500 police personal.In Aligarh district, 9 companies, including a dozen of CPMF, besides 130 S-Is, 135 HCs, 1,750 constables and 1,825 home guards would ensure law and order.In Hathras district, 13 companies, including 9 of CMPF, have been deployed to maintain peace along with 185 S-Is, 215 HCs, 2,430 constables and 2,700 home guards personnel.
Besides the security forces, the Election Commission has deployed 12 general observers, 12 expenditure observers, along with 2 police observers, one awareness observer and 5,207 micro observers to conduct peaceful polling.There are 21,946 polling stations in the third phase in which 1,11,65,759 male and 91,14,044 female voters would seal the fate of the candidates in 23,702 electronic voting machines (ElMs) in eight general and four reserved constituencies. The polling will be held from 7 am and to 6 pm.
Four constituencies have more than 16 candidates in the fray with the maximum number of 28 being in Fatehpur Sikri and the minimum of 9 contestants in Hathras.Out of 188 contestants in the fray in these 12 constituencies, 20 are females.Agra has the largest electorate of 18.14 lakh voters and Etah the smallest with 15.77 lakh voters.The state’s third phase poll would seal the fate of many senior leaders, including Mulayam Singh Yadav, Dimple Yadav, Rajveer, Jayant Chaudhary, Hema Malini, Amar Singh, Seema Upadhyaya, Salman Khursheed, Rajaram Pal.
While the BJP, SP and BSP have fielded their candidates on all the seats, the Congress is contesting only six, having left three seats for RlD, one for Mahan Dal and has not fielded any candidate against Mulayam Singh Yadav (Mainpuri) and Dimple Yadav (Kannauj).