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Security was beefed up in Delhi ahead of tomorrow's Assembly elections to avoid any untoward incident during polling and to check misuse of money, liquor or musclemen to influence voters.
As the number of critical polling booths has almost doubled this time since the last Delhi assembly elections, the number of security personnel has also gone up.
In 2008, there were 264 such critical premises, but this time around, 634 premises have been identified as critical.
Similarly, the number of police personnel deployed in the poll duty has also gone up from 35,000 in the last elections to 64,000 this time.
Besides, 107 companies of central paramilitary forces have also been deployed.
Surveillance have been mounted over criminal elements and muscle men, a hawk-eyed vigil is being kept at the border check posts to check smuggling of liquor and trafficking of illegal fire arms, besides transportation of currency.
Efforts have also been made to keep check on people coming to Delhi from Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon, who may cast bogus votes during the polls, sources said.
Delhi police is working in tandem with the police forces of Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to keep a check on these activities.
Senior police officials are constantly reviewing the security needs and chalking out plans for peaceful conduct of elections.
All the polling booths which have been identified as critical and hypercritical will have two-layer security, one with state police and the other with Central para military forces.
The Election Commission has also taken elaborate steps which includes deployment of micro observers and installation of CCTV cameras. It has also introduced live web-casting through which proceedings in the polling stations which will be monitored live in its control room.
In order to keep a tab on use of any unfair means during the elections, flying squads, static surveillance teams and video surveillance teams will be active especially in vulnerable areas.
