The ECs watching

After elections in Manipur,Punjab and Uttarakhand,Uttar Pradesh heads for its seven-phase election that kicks off on February 8. In one of the most closely monitored elections ever,teams deployed by the Election Commission take turns to work round the clock to ensure that no candidate flexes his muscle or money power.

Candidates know they are being watched,so this election,there are no free meals,no long convoys of cars,no sarees and other freebies,no vitriol-spilling speeches. Traditionally,Bikapur,part of the fertile eastern UP belt and one of the five constituencies in Faizabad district,has seen bullets do the talking in ballot season,but that has changed over the last few elections. The sitting candidate here is don-turned-politician Jitendra Singh Bablu,who defected from the BSP to contest on a Peace Party ticket. Bablu is an accused in Congress state president Rita Bahuguna Joshis house arson case.

Bablu,who got out of jail to reach his home in Bikapur on Wednesday night,hit the campaign trail early next morning. Like most candidates this time,Bablus convoy is made up entirely of people on bicycles since hiring cars can be expensive.

Though he is happy about the level playing field EC rules have ensured,he misses the colour of the previous elections. In 2007,there was a lot of excitement among voters as well as workers. Thats missing this year, he says. He alleges that rival candidates are distributing money and non-vegetarian food to influence voters and that the EC should step up its vigil in villages.

But the EC says it has its eyes and ears to the ground. The Commission has set up static surveillance teams,video surveillance teams,video monitoring teams and a complaint centre,which together monitor candidates whenever they go out to campaign. In areas where there is no physical presence of the EC or its surveillance teams,any complaint made to its 24215;7 call centre at the district headquarters is promptly attended to and flying squads are rushed to the spot. Each flying squad is a six-member team that has a magistrate,a police sub-inspector,three constables and one videographer.

Static surveillance teams

12:05 p.m.,February 1. Raunahi police checkpost on the Faizabad-Lucknow highway,about 1.1 km from Bikapur block. A constable,standing about 100 metres ahead of the check-post,waves down a speeding Mahindra Xylo. The vehicle screeches to a halt about 50 metres from the post. Static magistrate Shyam Manohar and his team of three police constables walk up to the vehicle and ask its occupants to come out. The constables check the car seats and the carpet and rummage through the two bags in the car. The action plays out simultaneously on the camera screen of Akhilesh Kumar,a cameramen with the ECs static surveillance team in Bikapur. Five minutes later,Shyam Manohar,the static magistrate who is a junior engineer with the state government,nods at the constablesthe vehicle is clear.

Over the next two hours,the team checks 42 vehicles,including cars,motorcycles and a bus. It is a drill that has gone on,round the clock,since January 3,a week after the model code of conduct came into effect in the state. The Raunahi checkpost is considered to be sensitive as it falls on the Faizabad-Lucknow highway. On January 19,the EC team recovered Rs 5.71 lakh in cash from a car.

At 8:25 p.m. the same day,at the Pura Kalandar checkpost on the Faizabad-Allahabad road,a constable with another EC static surveillance team flashes his torchlight at a Tata Safari with a Samajwadi Party flag mounted on the bonnet.

The window rolls down and Mitrasen Yadav,the Samajwadi Party candidate,looks out. We have to check the car. Election Commission directives, says static magistrate Vishnu Prasad. Three police constables search the car as Yadav remains seated.

Apna Dal candidate Madhuri Singhs car is next and that gets cleared too. Over the next 20 minutes,the team checks more than a dozen vehicles at the checkpost. On January 7,the team at this checkpoint seized gold worth Rs 42 lakh from a car.

The two static teamsat Raunahi and Pura Kalandarhave been stationed to make sure that the two entry points into Bikapur are monitored.

We check cars randomly,but more so SUVs because they are used by influential people and have enough room to hide cash and liquor. We also check buses and motorcycles, says Shyam Manohar,the static magistrate at the Raunahi checkpost. He says vehicles from other districts and cars with beacons are the ones he watches out for.

People usually cooperate,but some get aggressive and complain that their cars were checked at more than three places between Lucknow and Faizabad, says Manoj Kumar Singh,a police constable.

Video surveillance team

3 p.m.,February 1. The BJPs star campaigner Sushma Swaraj has to address a public meeting in support of party candidate Anil Tiwari at Bharti Inter College ground on the Faizabad-Allahabad road. As party leader Vinay Katiyar begins his speech,EC cameraman Ashish Srivastavas camera starts rolling.

After his speech,Tiwari,the BJP candidate,says he isnt worried about the EC surveillance. After all,he spent only Rs 5 lakh on his last election in 1996. This time,I have taken permission from the EC to put up party flags. I also maintain a register to record my daily expenses, says Tiwari,who is dressed in a bright yellow kurta and a red jacket. He claims his poll expenditure wont exceed Rs 13 lakh the EC ceiling is Rs 16 lakh per candidate.

Tiwari wishes the EC werent so tough. The police are harassing common people by checking their vehicles. Recently,they seized some pamphlets from my relatives car. I got the pamphlets back only after I staged a dharna at the Raunahi police station, he says.

Meanwhile,cameraman Srivastava is going through a replay of the video he has just shot. He is part of the two-member video surveillance team thats led by Om Prakash,the videography in-charge and a government teacher. Bikapur has two such teams and both teams have been recording rallies and public meetings of candidates since January 8. The video surveillance teams reach the office of the returning officer at Sohawal block at 10 a.m.,get details of the public meetings they have to cover that day and are in the field till 10 p.m.,when candidates have to wind up campaigning.

Each surveillance team covers about five public meetings a day and everything is put down on paperthe size of the pandal,the number of benches used to prop up the stage,the chairs both on stage and off it,the number of loudspeakers,party flags and banners.

We have to keep a record of the number of vehicles that are here with party flags to calculate the money that the candidate spends on drivers and fuel. We also record the speeches of candidates to help the Election Commission keep a check and see that no one delivers hate speeches, says Om Prakash.

His little notebook is filled with jottingsthe stage measures 18215;18 feet,four benches make the stage and about 500 chairs and 16 loudspeakers are used at the rally site. He will submit his report to the returning officer at the end of the day.

Cameraman Srivastava says he has to be extra alert while at work. Besides recording the speeches,he has to keep an eye on the people around him. I look out to see if people are distributing money or eatables. So far,I have not captured any such incident on my camera. But on January 31,I recorded a video of Shiv Sena candidate Santosh speaking against a particular community,which is in violation of the model code of conduct, he says.

At the end of the day,Srivastava rides his bike to Faizabad city,about 15 km from Bikapur,where he makes CDs of his recordings and then drives back to Bikapur to hand over the CDs to the video monitoring team.

Video monitoring team

AT the Sohawal block office,Manisha Ojha,who works with the education department,sits peering at a computer that has videos of an election rally. She leads one of the two video monitoring teams that watch videos of public meetings in Bikapur. As the camera pans across the stage and the crowd,Ojha presses the pause button and makes notes in her diary,describing the stage,the number of flags at the venue,the vehicles and their registration numbers. They also monitor the speeches to make sure there are no controversial statements.

Recently,after a public meeting of the Samajwadi Party candidate,I sent out a report saying our team at the spot had estimated an expense of Rs 18,000 to conduct the rally,while the candidate pegged it at Rs 9,000. The returning officer issued a notice to the candidate. That served as a warning to others, says Ojha.

The video monitoring teams have to send their reports to the returning officer within 24 hours of getting the CDs.

We do this after our regular office work. We check the CDs in the tehsil office. But sometimes,there is no electricity and I have to watch it on my computer at work or home, says Ojha.

Complaint cell and call centre

Its a busy afternoon at the district magistrates office in Faizabad. In one of the rooms,televisions beam election news,phones ring incessantly and people shout out to each other or into phones. This is the 24215;7 centralised complaint cell-cum-call centre that has been operational since December 26. The office has four three-member teams who collect complaints over phone and e-mails and tip-off the flying squads and the video surveillance teams on the ground.

People are also encouraged to call in on our toll-free number and complain. But most people call to ask about their ration card and other entitlements. Of every 10 calls that we get,only two are related to elections. So far,we have got 11 poll-related complaints from Bikapur, says Ramesh Chandra Bharti,one of the supervisors at the call centre.

The call centre recently got a complaint from the BJP candidate in Ayodhya,who alleged that Gulshan Bindu,a eunuch contesting from the same seat,was violating the model code of conduct by making people take a vow that they would vote for her.

Additional District Magistrate Executive Rajesh Kumar says,Any such complaint is sent to the returning officers and flying squads. We ensure that complaints are attended to and resolved within 24 hours.

On the Lucknow-Faizabad highway,a supporter of BSP candidate Firoz Khan Gabbar stands on the roof of a Tata MUV,dressed in the shimmery blue of the BSP. A long line of Gabbars supporters follow on bicycles,incidentally,the election symbol of his partys key rival,the Samajwadi Party. But the irony seems lost on the BSP men or maybe it is simply hard-nosed pragmatism. After all,Gabbar wouldnt want to be the one answering the EC poser: Gabbar,kitni gaadiyan thee?