Campaigning for 1st phase of polls in C’garh ends

Voting for 18 seats tomorrow

◗ Around 65,000 security personnel have been deployed in the region to ensure smooth polling in the wake of threat by Maoists to derail the election process in remote Bastar.

Campaigning came to end for the first phase of Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh on Saturday. As many as 18 Assembly constituencies in eight Naxal- affected districts are going to polls in the first phase on November 12. The rest 72 seats are going to polls in the second phase of Assembly elections in Chhattis- garh on November 20.

The Election Commission has found it a challenging task to complete the poll process particularly in 12 Assembly constituencies in seven districts of Bastar division, nearly two third of areas of which is known as Naxal- stronghold.

Around 65,000 security personnel have been deployed in the region to ensure smooth polling in the wake of threat by Maoists to derail the election process in rem- ote Bastar. Of the 4,000 polling booths in Bastar division, 2000 have been identified as sensitive and very sensitive ones.

Intelligence has alerted the routes leading to the polling booths identified as sensitive and very sensitive have been mined with Improvised Explosive Devices by Maoists to cause harms to

the polling parties and security forces. In the past 15 days itself, more than 110 IEDs have been recovered in these routes and defused.

As many as 12 choppers have been deployed to take polling parties and security personnel to polling booths set up in remote areas in the region.

As many as 190 candidates from Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress and Janata Congress Chhattisgarh- BSP alliance, besides those from CPI and CPM have filed nominations in 18 Assembly constituencies.

Star campaigners of different parties such as Congress president Rahul Gandhi and BJP national president Amit Shah campaigned for their respective parties on Friday before campaigning came to end.

Of the 18 seats, Congress won 12 Assembly seats, while BJP secured the rest six in the 2013 assembly polls.