Parties ready with booth management strategies

CHENNAI: All political parties have chalked out their booth management strategies for the polling on Wednesday.
As the parties are allowed to have only one election agent inside a booth, in few key constituencies they have unofficially fielded independent candidates to effectively have two additional agents in place for "sustaining the party morale, TOI has learnt.
The ruling DMK has appointed three-member cadres to distribute voter slips door to door based on a community-wise detailed survey. A person from the dominant community in every area has been picked to be the party's booth agent. Each of these three-member groups would monitor 100 voters.
DMK has also appointed booth management committees in constituency, zone and area committee levels. The constituency committee will watch all booths in that constituency, while the zonal committees have to prepare food for their agents. The area committee member will be the party's booth agent and he will monitor the polling percentages during the day.
AIADMK has appointed the party's advocates as constituency committee members. They will visit the booths during the election. "If violence or rigging or malpractices occur, the booth agent has the responsibility to alert the constituency committee members who in turn have to tip off the higher election authorities and press them to register a case against the opposition party", said an AIADMK candidate from a southern district.
PMK has appointed a five-member committee comprising members from Vanniyar dominated villages. They will keep watching the poll percentages. If some people do not cast their vote till 2 PM, then the committee members will go to their houses and urge them to exercise their franchise. .
VCK has followed the DMK'style and appointed three-member panels at the constituency, committee and zonal levels. Their mobile numbers have been given to the booth agents. If something untoward happens, the booth committee agent will pass a message to the constituency committee which will alert the nearby police station and also proceed to the booth with the candidate. AIADMK allies have imbibed their major partner's style of working and arrangements during the assembly election.