Paramilitary Forces Sought For By-poll

PUDUCHERRY : The Election Commission has been requested to allot two companies of Central para-military forces for Puducherry to assist the local police in the October 13 by-election in Indira Nagar assembly constituency.All steps are being taken to conduct the by-election in a transparent and peaceful manner, District Election Officer and Collector S B Deepak Kumar told a press conference here on Friday. All the 27 polling stations in the constituency are ready for polls with web casting facility to monitor the process, he said.Six polling booths were identified as vulnerable by the police. Regular vehicular checks are being conducted at five inter-state borders. As many as 3,792 bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL), 84 bottles of beer and four vehicles used for transporting the same were seized and handed over to the Excise Department.Out of the 207 arms licences in Puducherry district,154 have so far been deposited in the concerned police stations. Police have so far booked 129 persons under different sections of CrPC.Campaigning would come to an end at 5 pm on October 11 and  stringent action would be taken against those found canvassing after that. All outsiders and political party leaders who do not belong to the constituency will have to leave the constituency after the campaign comes to a close.The Collector said that 23 Central government and bank officials were appointed as micro-observers for the constituency. Six flying squads to monitor the implementation of the model code of conduct of elections and another two to monitor the distribution of money and liquor were appointed.Seven candidates are in the fray for three-cornered contest. According to the final list released on Thursday, V Arumugham-Congress, A Tamilselvan-AINRC, Suttukeni Baskaran-AIADMK ,K Vaithinathan-BSP, R Shanmugham-IJK  and two independent D Tamil Selvam and S Veeraraghavan. However the main contest would be between AINRC, Congress and AIADMK.