36,351 police personnel deployed for ULB polls in Andhra Pradesh
VIJAYAWADA The Andhra Pradesh State Election Commission (SEC) has announced the deployment of 36,351 police personnel and a large number of drones, CCTV cameras and videographers to ensure fair and peaceful conduct of elections to Urban Local Bodies (Municipal Corporations, Municipalities and Nagar Panchayats) on November 1. State Election Commissioner Anil Chandra Punetha stated in a release that the police personnel drafted for the election duty include 32,276 policemen and women available in the districts, 2,730 personnel from the Andhra Pradesh Special Police (APSP) and 1,345 from other wings of A.P.
police. The situation will be monitored by 34 Superintendents of Police and 52 additional SPs. The others being put on the field include 152 DSPs, 662 circle/reserve inspectors, 1,564 sub-inspectors/reserve SIs, 2,111 assistant SIs /assistant reserve SIs, 4,505 civil head police constables/armed reserve head constables, 17,017 civil police constables/armed reserve police constables, and 6,179 home guards.
Mobile teams and flying squads A total of 1,543 mobile teams comprising 3,103 personnel, 481 teams of striking forces of 1,479 personnel, and 347 teams of special striking forces with 1,394 personnel were being deployed. Besides, 405 flying squads comprising 415 personnel were being deployed to monitor adherence to the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), and 414 teams with 2,516 personnel were sent to man checkposts and be part of static surveillance teams.
A total of 4,655 personnel have been tasked with ensuring the security of strong rooms of ballot boxes at 111 centres, 525 personnel for security at the distribution centres, and 5,405 personnel posted on other duties. Mr. Punetha said that security arrangements were being made at 4,372 polling stations, and 3,355 police personnel have been allotted for 671 hypersensitive centres and 4,943 to 1,233 sensitive centres.
He warned that stringent action would be taken as per law if MCC was violated during polling and law and order was disturbed.
