How 'critical' polling booths identified

OVER 1.47 crore eligible voters of the national capital will exercise their franchise across 13,500 polling booths spread across 2,700 locations.

- UJWAL JALALI

Like every other election, the police send a list of booths marked as "critical" to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The parameters for categorising the booths are decided by the police and later by the ECI.

For the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi on May 25, Delhi Police sources told this newspaper that a list of several such polling stations has been sent to the ECI.

After collecting data from various police stations, this newspaper learnt that the minimum number of critical polling booths in the New Delhi district is less than 5. For the southeast district, the police have sent a list of 53 "critical" polling stations. The North East district of the city, which witnessed violent communal clashes just a year after the last general elections in 2019, will have around 255 polling stations, of which the police have marked 55 the sensitivity of a polling as critical.