Click to play videoNew Delhi: Mulayam Singh may be the Chief Minister, but his writ will not run in Uttar Pradesh now. That's what the Election Commission seems to be saying. After an administrative shakeup that covered the areas going to polls in the first two phases, there are warning signs now of more such action ahead.
"If our observers feel the need, nothing prevents us from taking the same kind of action," Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami said on Thursday.
The UP Assembly polls are perhaps an acid test for the Election Commission. The poll panel is refusing to compare the situation there to Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar or West Bengal. The commission says it is prepared for the unique challenge. And micro-management appears to be the strategy for now.
The Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh are going to be held in seven phases, starting April 7.
So what if there is no President's rule, which the Opposition was pushing for. For the first time, there is a 99 per cent deployment of Central security forces in the state to ensure water-tight check.
"It's a question of conducting a free and fair elections," Gopalaswami says.
"There are some special problems in UP. So we have highlighted that. There's a high court judgement that says there is misuse of red lights, tinted glasses. Unauthorised people are being given security. There are so many issues, plus at the field level. There are areas where there could be intimidation," he explains.'
UP's 403 constituencies spread over 1,10,000 polling stations will be under the keen eyes of the 320 election observers deployed for the polls. The brief is clear: nothing should go wrong. It's a micro-management exercise the Election Commission has learnt successfully in Bihar.
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