Maharashtra readies for civic corporation polls

As the curtains came down on the noholdsbarred campaign for elections to the 10 municipal corporations across Maharashtra police and security forces readied to ensure an incidentfree balloting Thursday Over 20000 policemen will be deployed in Mumbai city alone on the polling day an official said The stage is set for an electorate of 35 crore to elect a total of 1244 municipal councillors including 624 women in Mumbai Thane Ulhasnagar Pune PimpriChinchwad Solapur Nashik Akola Amravati and Nagpur municipal corporations According to a civic official of the 35 crore voters in these 10 municipal corporations over a crore voters are in Mumbai alone Mumbais total voters are nearly 13 crore said Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner Subodh Kumar The polling will start at 730 am and would continue till 530 pm he added As many as 8326 voting centres are being set up across the city with 41000 municipal officers on duty Police have also stepped up security measures deploying around 2375 officers 20982 constables and five additional companies of the State Reserve Police Force SRPF with the existing three companies Three companies of the Rapid Action Force RAF and 2000 Home Guards will also be deployed in the city on the poll day Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik said As the voting will be held on Thursday the deployment has begun today We will be present in every lane and bylane of the city he added According to Patnaik of the 211 sensitive polling stations comprising 883 booths four have been declared hypersensitive There will be maximum deployment of security personnel at the hypersensitive spots where CCTVs have been installed for recording every movement According to police officials liquor sale has been prohibited for three days from Wednesday Two control rooms have also been set up for pollrelated complaints Emergency numbers 02222623054 and 02222621983 have been dedicated for it The electronic voting machines EVMs will be dispatched to 29 centres across the city on Wednesday and will be guarded till the counting is completed on February 17 According to Joint Commissioner of Police Law and Order Rajnish Seth the candidates will have to take prior permission to carry out victory processions following the announcement of the results Meanwhile a first information report FIR was registered late Tuesday against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena MNS chief Raj Thackeray and a Marathi news channel for allegedly violating model code of conduct ahead of the civic polls police said Wednesday A local Marathi channel on Tuesday evening aired an interview of Raj Thackeray even after the code of conduct came into force Tuesday The model code of conduct states that the poll campaign should conclude 48 hours before the polling But the channel aired an interview of Thackeray which has been termed as part of the campaign by a municipal officer who registered the FIR a civic official from Mumbais N M Joshi Marg where the complaint has been registered told IANS