Polls today; 10000 booths 'sensitive'

As many as 3.36 crore voters will decide the fate of 162 candidates in the 26 parliamentary constituencies of the state on Tuesday amid tight security.

Several stalwarts including the Deputy Prime minister L K Advani are contesting the polls being held after the Godhra train carnage and the subsequent riots.

Heavy security arrangements have been made and adequate companies of both the state reserve police (SRP) and the central reserve police force (CRPF) have been deployed for polling at 36,826 booths. Around 10,000 booths have been identified as sensitive.

The Election Commission has decided to continue with the 31 special booths opened for the assembly polls in December 2002. The assembly polls were held after the Godhra carnage and the subsequent riots. These booths were opened in areas where members of a community had their polling booths in the areas dominated by the other community.

The main fight is between BJP and Congress, which has forged an alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party.

In the last Lok Sabha polls, BJP had won 21 seats.

Of the 3,36,08,412 voters, 1,73,04,764 are males and 1,63,03,648 females.

BJP has fielded four women candidates and Congress one. Advani and Union ministers Harin Pathak, Kashiram Rana, Bhavna Chikhliya and Vallabh Kathiriya are some of the main candidates of BJP.

The Congress stalwarts seeking election include Shankersinh Vaghela, Satyajit Gaekwad, Bharatsinh Solanki (son of former external affairs minister Madhavsinh Solanki) and Tushar Chaudhari (son of former chief minister Amarsinh Chaudhary).

The Jamnagar district administration said all arrangements have been made for the conduct of free and fair polls.

T Natarajan, district election officer, said ten candidates are left in the fray for the seat.

As many as 7,000 officials are deployed for the election duty. This include 5,000 officials from the neighboring Rajkot district. As many as 130 state transport buses and 200 other government vehicles would be used for transportation of the election staff and material, in addition to 198 private buses.

A total of 641 routs of the state road transport corporation have been terminated for three days, said Natarajan. Officials said 1,200 local police personnel have been deployed around polling booths.

Three companies of para-military forces have been deployed for the 336 sensitive polling booths of the constituency. Mostly of the polling booths of the Kalyanpur, Bhanvad and Jamjodhpur talukas have been identified as sensitive, police said.

In Surat, 23,77,117 voters "" 13,02,166 male and 10,74,951 female "" will exercise their franchise. A total of 2,248 polling booths have been set up and 748 of them have been classified as sensitive.

In Mandvi, Of the total 1,308 polling booths, 299 have been declared sensitive.

Surat collector Pankaj Joshi, said, "All preparations for free, fair and peaceful conduct of the elections have been made. We do not foresee any trouble."

Commissioner of police Vineet Kumar Gupta said, "We have made tight security arrangements. Over 2,000 policemen have been deployed."

Seven companies of Kerala and Tamil Nadu police, three companies of the State Reserve Police and 1,600 homeguards have also been deployed.