A flex board in Darbhanga. Picture by Mukesh Kumar Jha

Several flex boards detailing candidates’ profiles put on display by the district adminis-tration across 48 wards of Darbhanga Municipal Corporation (DMC) have gone missing on the eve of the civic polls.

The boards were part of the state election commission’s Know Your Candidate Campaign, a first-of-its-kind drive to be launched in civic polls this year to educate voters about the candidate’ profile and their image. The district administration had placed over 500 flex boards, furnishing details, including candidates’ names, education qualification, age, sex, contribution to society and criminal antecedents, in various wards to help voters elect their respective representatives with a better public image.

“Neither any candidate nor any voter has complained about hooligans removing the flex boards in any of the ward. We had placed 10 flex boards detailing candidates’ profiles in accordance with state election commission’s guidelines in each ward of DMC,” district magistrate-cum-electoral officer R. Laxamanan said.

He added: “We have identified 56 candidates who face criminal charges. The sections of Indian Penal Code under which these candidates are facing criminal charges have been put on the boards. We gathered information about the candidates from the declarations they submitted while filing nomination.”

He further said: “Earlier, all this information were on the Internet, to which limited people have access. We expect details of candidates’ profiles on flex boards to help voters sort their choice of candidates. We have additional flex boards detailing candidates’ profiles that would be displayed at all 139 polling stations.”

Whip cracked

District magistrate (DM)-cum-district election officer Bandana Preyashi has ordered the administration to extern 16 persons from Gaya on Thursday to ensure free and fair polling. The DM issued the order on Wednesday to extern 26 persons, including Gaya Municipal Corporation outgoing deputy mayor Akhauri Onkarnath, alias Mohan Shrivastava, from their respective police station areas on the day of polling. The DM passed the order while hearing cases of 84 people for the municipal corporation in Gaya and three nagar panchayats in Tekari, Sherghati and Bodhgaya.