The voting for the high-stakes Assembly elections began, with the Aam Aadmi Party eyeing a third straight term, banking on its governance record and welfare schemes, while the BJP and the Congress look at resurgence.

There are over 1.56 crore voters eligible to cast their ballots from 7 am onwards on Wednesday. Voting will be taking place across 13,766 polling stations in all the 70 Assembly constituencies to decide the fates of 699 candidates in a contest that could reshape the political landscape of the capital.

Nearly 3,000 polling booths have been identified as sensitive, and special security arrangements, including drone surveillance, Quick Reaction Team, Striking Team and one company of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) have been deployed to maintain law and order.

“All Delhi Police personnel are committed to ensuring free, fair, and peaceful elections. The pre-poll arrangements have already been done and all the senior staff of the Delhi Police are on the ground to ensure peaceful election,” Special Commissioner of Police (SPNO Delhi Assembly Elections) Devesh Chandra Srivastva said.

He said that 220 companies of paramilitary forces out of which 150 companies of CAPF and 70 companies of 10 different states, along with over 30,000 police personnel, 9,000 Home Guards, and all the senior police officers of Delhi Police have been deployed.

Srivastva said that robust security arrangements are in place across the national capital. He said all the 65 border points that Delhi shares with Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have already been sealed and heavy deployment of security has been put in place. He said that from January 7 to February 3, the Delhi Police has recorded 1,076 cases of alleged MCC violations and arrested or detained 34,250 people for it.

“These are cases lodged between January 7, when the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into force, and February 3 which was the last day of campaigning for the Delhi Assembly polls. Our teams have also confiscated 469 illegal firearms and 513 cartridges with 491 people arrested under the Arms Act,” said the Special CP.

Police have also seized 1,10,093 litres of liquor and 1,381 people were arrested for it. He said that due to strict vigil, police seized 196.602 kg of drugs worth over Rs 77.9 crore and more than 1,200 banned injections were also seized and arrested 177 people for it.