Exercise your right

ALLAHABAD:The mother of all exercises in the world's largest democracy has begun.Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha are on. What may be just a simple press of abutton for a voter, involves huge expenditure as also tremendous hard work andeffort for over two months. For the common man, the poll day is marked on thecalendar as a holiday to enjoy, but before setting out for a picnic, let's givea thought to the enormity of the activities conducted behind the scenes. Youmight just change your mind and decide on casting your invaluablevote!Allahabad district, with two complete parliamentaryconstituencies --Allahabad and Phulpur --and a partial constituency Bhadohi,goes to polls on April 23. For this purpose, 3,543 polling booths have been setup in 2,127 buildings. Tens of thousands of personnel from over 500 governmentdepartments, both Central And State, paramilitary and police forces would bedeployed. This requires careful planning, cautious implementation and accurateexecution. The magnitude of the process engulfs the district administration formonths to ensure that each and every citizen gets an opportunity to decide theleaders of the nation. The process is set in motion once theElection Commission of India (ECI) declares the dates for polling. Arranging forthe polls is a massive exercise. Just imagine management of 20,000 personnel forpolls their notification, at least two rounds of training, assimilation as apolling party, distribution of EVMs and polling material to each party and theirtransportation to polling centres. "Just a simple task like bringing fourmembers of a party together requires minute planning like having numberedstickers on each chair during training sessions,'' says Rajiv Aggarwal,Allahabad district magistrate who is also the district election officer (DEO)for the district.Security and safety is of paramount importance.Around 21,000 uniformed men would fan out throughout the district in order toensure free and fair polls. This movement has to be planned down to the lastname of each village chowkidar and home guard. Then, 250 cameras and 370micro-observers will keep a vigilant eye on any prospective trouble-mongers onthe polling day.The polling parties are going to depart from Paradeground and K P College ground on April 22, returning on the evening of April 23to the Agricultural Mandi at Mundera where the EVMs will be stored under guardfor the counting on May 16. These three sites are bursting with people,vehicles, equipment and blaring loudspeakers -- the jamboree is to be seen to bebelieved. Sources claim that the enormity of numbers, figures, attributes andrandomization process has even made the computers crash down numeroustimes.District officials have been preparing for the polling day formonths altogether. With just a day left, frenzied work till the wee hours of themorning is going on for last minute detailing. "I even dream about electoralrolls,'' guffawed an official and added, "We hope to conduct polling in a fairand peaceful manner and expect people to turn out in large numbers and vote.After all, this entire exercise is to ensure their right to vote.''