Drive your car to the nearest polling station with family members but don’t even give lift to your neighbours.
The district administration is taking utmost care for peaceful elections in Patna on Thursday.
“Anyone can come to a booth using private vehicles like cars and two-wheelers. However, one should carry all the required documents and vehicle papers. However, no one should take people outside his or her family in the car. If they are stopped and police will think that people are brought by influencing them to vote for a particular party. People are advised not to use their private vehicles much on the election day as there will be a lot of checks,” district magistrate N. Saravana Kumar said.
He added that the EVMs would be sent to the booths by Wednesday along with patrolling magistrates.
“A total of 188 polling booths will have the facility of live webcasting. These are sensitive booths which have been selected. Also, 89 booths will have video cameras installed and there will be digital cameras in 355 booths. Campaigns ended at 6pm on Tuesday,” he said.
The district magistrate said: “Adequate security forces have been received. They will be moving off to their respective deputations by Tuesday evening also. The forces include jawans of the central paramilitary force (CPMF), BSF, CISF, SAF, BMP, homeguards among others. The police are specially keeping an eye on the movement of cash and liquor and there have been some catches too. In two such cases on Monday, prima facie, it seems that the money was to be used illegally during the elections and the investigations regarding the same are being carried out.”
At the Dhanuki Mor area under the jurisdiction of Agamkuan police station of the Patna City, the police had recovered Rs 3.50 lakh from an SUV believed to be that of a former MLA. The police said one person who was in the car had been taken into custody.
In another catch in the same area, the cops had apprehended another SUV and recovered cash worth Rs 3.12 lakh from one Manoj Choudhary. Police sources said Manoj was the son of former Union minister Dasai Choudhary, who had recently joined the BJP.
“On the polling day, the candidates will be provided with vehicles but their supporters will not be allowed to enter the booths since they have not got their election slip which has the name of the voter and the information of the polling booth. There are still some cases in which people do not know their respective polling booths. On the election day, the candidate and supporters have been allowed to set up small kiosks for the same in a bid to help the people. However, the kiosks should be outside the radius of 200 metres from any polling booth,” he said.
