Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, May 30:
Preparations have been completed for the conduct of polling to elect 27 councillors of Imphal Municipal Council tomorrow even as Deputy Commissioner of Imphal East district appealed to the electorates to contribute their mite in ensuring smooth conduct of the democratic process.
as part of the effort to ensure trouble-free election, polling personnel along with poll materials have been despatched to respective polling stations from this afternoon itself.
The polling personnel including teams of unarmed security personnel have left for their respective destinations after being briefed by higher authorities at the offices of the DCs concerned and will stay put at their assigned polling stations till the poll hours lapses tomorrow.
According to Returning Officers (ROs) of Imphal West and East districts the security cover would be enhanced with deployment of mobile armed personnel during the polling period slated to be from 8 am till 4 pm.
Detailing on composition of polling booths where Imphal East district electorates would cast their votes, SDO Porompat W Bhaktaraj, who is also the district's RO said total number of 63 polling stations would be scattered throughout the district from where seven councillors would be elected to the 27 seat IMC.
He also classified 38 of them as hyper-sensitive and the remaining as sensitive which will be manned by 169 polling personnel.
On the other hand, the district's DC KK Chhetry observing the polling stations as 'logistically critical and vulnerable to trouble' said adequate security measures have been adopted to prevent any untoward incident.
Justifying attaching the vulnerability-tag to all the polling stations, the DC said most contestants are closely related but added that there are evidences of intense rivalry amongst the candidates despite the family relationship factor.
Taking into account such stiff competitions, contribution of the electorates in ensuring smooth and successful conduct of the polls is an essential criteria, he observed and appealed to all to ensure a peaceful and free and fair polling.