No voters in 99 polling booths

Ninety-nine polling stations in Delhi are 'haunted' with not a single voter left.

The polling stations are among the 9,107 booths which the CEO's office has identified for the December 1 election.

For all practical purposes, these polling stations will remain non-functional on the day of polling. No arrangements will be made here, an official said.

The polling stations are identified on the basis of house-to-house surveys to update the electoral rolls. Each station covers a certain number of voters of the constituency. On an average, each booth has 938 voters. The last such survey was done in 2000-01.

"We usually don't change polling stations. Only when there is a dramatic change in the number of voters is an adjustment made," an official said.

Migration is said to be the main reason for these deserted stations.

"As the elections were nearing, a number of MLAs wanted to shift slums from their constituencies. This relocation of slum clusters picked pace and thousands were shifted," he said.

Election Commission officials say these stations can be used as reserve stations in case of a problem in the regular polling stations.

However, this migration has resulted in the creation of new polling stations in some constituencies of east and outer Delhi.

Apart from this, the polling stations in seven assembly constituencies will have two electronic voting machines in each booth.

These constituencies are Saket, Gole Market, Nasirpur, Tuglakabad, Karawal Nagar and Wazirpur.