Ghaziabad is one among the 91 parliamentary constituencies across the country that will go to vote on Thursday as part of phase 1 of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The city is all ready for the democratic exercise, which will see sitting MP and former army chief General (retired) VK Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will take on 11 other candidates to retain his seat, in one of the most hotly contested elections that is expected to see a close finish this time.

In Ghaziabad, the polling parties Wednesday collected the election related material from the Kamla Nehru Nagar grounds. The Ghaziabad parliamentary constituency has 27,28,084 votes of whom 15,17,276 are male and 12,08,747 women, and 109 are of the third gender, apart from 1,952 service (armed forces) voters.

The district administration has 47 polling centres which have developed as ‘model polling centres’. The 47 centres have 181 polling booths in total. Besides these, the administration has also setup six ‘sakhi booths’ in six segments of Loni, Muradnagar, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Dhaulana and Modinagar. The Modinagar segment is part of Baghpat parliamentary constituency but arrangements are done by the Ghaziabad administration.

“Nearly 14,000 polling personnel have been given training and sent to their respective centres and booths. We have also made arrangements for an extra 150-200 EVMs and VVPAT machines in every segment in case there is any breakdown somewhere. About 250 voter awareness programmes were conducted over the past one month to encourage voters to come out and vote,” Ritu Maheshwari, district magistrate and district election officer, said.

The Ghaziabad police have got deposited 11,943 weapons and have exempted 260 licence holders, who are facing threat to their life, from giving up their arms.

“We have deployed police and paramilitary personnel across the district. The border with other districts and neighbouring states will be barricaded but not shut,” Upendra Kumar Agrawal, deputy inspector general (Ghaziabad), said.

The police have deployed about 877 sub-inspectors, 549 head constables, 3,169 constables and 6,838 home guards, besides 18 companies of paramilitary forces from outside Ghaziabad district.

“We have planned that one sub-inspector along with four constables will be assigned to each polling booth. At polling centres that have 20 booths or more, we will deploy about 50 personnel,” Agrawal said.

The district administration officials on Wednesday said the Election Commission of India has directed the closure of government and private institutions, industrial units and trading firms to ensure that staff and workers are able to vote without losing a day’s pay.

“In case any institution is found functioning on Thursday, it would face action,” Maheshwari said.

First Published: Apr 11, 2019 10:41 IST