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Journalism of Courage
To ensure peaceful polling in the third round of Assembly polls, the Election Commission got the state8217;s borders with UP, West Bengal and Nepal sealed, which showed in the most peaceful elections the state has seen in the recent years.
Deputy Election Commissioner Anand Kumar said the EC even used diplomatic channels to get the Bihar-Nepal border sealed while the Chief Election Commissioner himself wrote to the West Bengal and UP governments to block the borders with Bihar.
The result, Kumar said, was 8216;8216;incident free polling. No reports of EVM damage or snatching, no poll violence.8217;8217; Only 131 persons, including four candidates, were arrested, he added.
Impact of the rather unusual measures taken by the EC is reflected in the statistics: In 1990 Bihar assembly elections, 80 people were killed in poll violence, in 8217;95, the figure went down marginally to 54, and rose again in the 8217;99 Lok Sabha elections to 74.
EC records show that 61 people were killed in 2000 but all records were broken in the civic polls of 2001 where as many 158 people died in poll violence.
In the last general elections 2004 and the February assembly elections 2005, the violence was comparatively low 8212; 20 and 22 killed respectively. This time, the number of killed come down to two.
