Turnout, vote share determine which booth is marked critical

GUWAHATI: The process to categorize polling stations as "critical" has moved away from looking at past record of violence to assessing the possibility of voters being influenced.
On the basis of this new form of assessment, 59 critical polling stations have been identified in Kamrup (Metropolitan) district, which comes under Jalukbari, Dispur and Gauhati West assembly segments of the Gauhati Lok Sabha constituency.

"Earlier, polling stations would be categorized as 'hyper-sensitive' or 'sensitive'. The concept has changed now. Under the new rules, a polling station with 75% turnout or more where one candidate gets 90% of the votes or more is considered critical," additional deputy commissioner Nibedan Das Patowary said.

"A polling station may have a record of peaceful elections, but it is these statistics that will decide its status," he added.

If areas under a polling station have a record of a section of voters influencing weaker section to choose a particular candidate, the booth will be marked "critical". Sources said distance, terrain and insurgency are also factors being taken into consideration to identify critical polling booths.

In addition, a few polling stations located along the hilly terrain bifurcating the Assam-Meghalaya border near the city are also being marked critical for the third phase of Lok Sabha election in Assam on Tuesday.

Though technical difficulties prevented the election authorities from webcasting the activities of all critical polling stations on the election days in Assam this time, district administrations are trying to deploy adequate security personnel for smooth conduct of elections.

Officials in the office of the chief electoral officer (CEO), Assam, told TOI that 2,000 critical polling stations across the state were selected for webcasting on the polling days this Lok Sabha elections.

"Through webcasting, the CEO office based in Guwahati and EC office in New Delhi monitors the activities in selected critical polling stations live on the polling days. Due to some technical difficulties, however, all critical polling stations could not be brought under webcasting radar. Nevertheless, with adequate security arrangements in those polling stations, we are hopeful of conducting the third phase election smoothly on Tuesday," said joint CEO, Assam, Pankaj Chakraborty.