learning from its past mistakes, the district administration has decided to keep a close eye on prominent party-backed candidates contesting the mayoral election.
The 24X7 video surveillance will record each movement of such candidates in the poll fray. The decision was made public on Saturday by Ranchi Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Electoral Officer, Vinay Kumar Choubey after allotment of election symbols to candidates.
The decision was taken in the backdrop of the fiasco last year which had overshadowed the previous election. The new development would mean that a video team will capture movements of prominent party-backed candidates like Congress-backed Rama Khalkho, Bhartiya Janta Party-backed Asha lakra and AJSU -backed Barsha Gari during the election period.
“This (video surveillance) is being done to ensure that last year’s incident is not repeated,” said Choubey.
last year, the Congress-backed candidate had landed in a soup after recovery of money from a city hotel just before Ranchi went to mayoral polls.
The incident had dragged close aides of the then Ranchi MP Subodh Kant Sahay besides forcing Khalkho, the then Ranchi Mayor, to go underground. Subsequently, the election was rescinded leading to dissent among other candidates.
The district administration will depute as many as 31 Zonal Magistrates, 3604 polling officials for election duty besides forming 90 patrolling units to meet exigencies during election. The concept of modal booths will be carried forward to the mayoral election as well. The district administration will also initiate awareness programme under SVEEP (Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation) to improve voting percentage further. First round of randomization of EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) will be completed on June 10.
“The programme will be conducted from June 10 to 20. We had received good response in last elections and expect to get good response this time too,” added the Ranchi DC.
Meanwhile, candidates in the poll fray have been allotted symbols to enable them to start their election campaign. While Ajeet Oraon has been allotted aeroplane, Gagan Kacchap has been allotted air balloon, Ganesh lohra got the symbol of bangles, Durga Munda was allotted basket, Navin lakra had to content with the symbol of cricket bat whereas Puspa Kacchap got the symbol of batsman, Barsha Gari has been allotted battery torch, Michael Ekka will contest on the symbol of necklace, Madhuri lakra has been given the symbol of bell and Rama Khalho blackboard, lokesh Khalkho will contest on the symbol of textbook, Sudama Khalkho will campaign with the symbol of bread and Sunil Kujur will be asking people to vote for brick.
Voting for the mayoral election will take place on June 23 whereas counting will take place on June 27.