Kolkata: The stage is set for elections in 108 municipalities across the state on Sunday. Over 95 lakh voters will be casting their franchise across 10,813 polling stations. There are a total of 2,171 wards in 108 municipalities with the total number of polling premises being 4851.
The highest number of electors totalling around 3,97,366 are in Rajpur — Sonarpur municipality in South 24-Parganas that has 35 wards. Maheshtala municipality in the same district having 35 wards have 3,68,958 voters. There will be a total deployment of 44,000 police personnel for smooth conduct of the elections with at least one armed police personnel in every booth.
Senior officials of the police administration on Saturday visited the sensitive booths across the state to supervise the security arrangement. "We are taking all possible measures for free and fair polls," a senior official of state Election Commission (SEC) said. The total election will be supervised by 17 senior officials of the state police that includes three in the rank of ADG/IG and 14 in the DIG rank.
The total uncontested seats for the civic elections are 103.
Budge Budge municipality has 18 uncontested seats, followed by Dinhata in Cooch Behar and Suri in Birbhum both having 16 such seats each.
Polling personnel with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) reached their respective polling stations by Saturday afternoon. Adequate lighting arrangements have been made in and around the polling stations. Temporary shades have been made in front of the polling booths so that voters face no difficulty while waiting in the queue till their turn comes.
The EVMs will be kept in strongrooms and then sent to the counting centres on March 2 morning, the scheduled date for counting. "We have taken adequate measures for confidence building among the voters, particularly in the sensitive areas. Commissioner Sourav Das has held a series of meetings and provided necessary instructions so that the polling process can be conducted in a free and fair manner. There will be additional security measures and CCTV surveillance, particularly in the sensitive booths," a senior SEC official said.
Municipal elections have already been held in Kolkata Municipal Corporation followed by Asansol Municipal Corporation, Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, Chandannagore Municipal Corporation and Siliguri Municipal Corporation where Trinamool Congress has won convincingly.
The SEC commissioner held a meeting with three special observers associated with the elections on Saturday. Around 125 poll observers have been deployed.