Deployment of heavy police force ensures peaceful polls

Deployment of heavy police force ensures peaceful polls

While the elections saw heavy police force deployed on the ground throughout the State, there was also a significant number of them running the show from behind the stage.

The Telangana State Police Department’s conference room was turned into a war room with live video feed from polling stations across the State. 

The room with five rows for seating officials had both live updates from polling stations as well as election related updates flowing in.  A large screen displaying live video footage from 12 locations at once, was monitored by a team of 40 officials from various departments, most of them being police officials.  

The system also had an option to select constituency in the State to display live feed from all the polling stations there. The officials in the control room were connected with the officials on ground via VHF (Very High Frequency) communication sets.

A separate desk for hourly audio updates from the tri-commissionerates - Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda, was also installed with 4-5 officials on the task at all times.

Telangana State Director General of Police (DGP) Ravi Gupta said, “This election has been largely incident-free. Except for a few cases in Hyderabad, no cases of violence were reported. Officials from central agencies were roped in and deployed extensively on polling duties to maintain fairness during the process.”