KOLKATA: West Bengal administration on Saturday sent letters to state governments of Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab seeking additional police forces for providing security cover to the 58,000 polling booths where panchayat elections would be held on May 14.
The decision was taken after a shortfall of almost 38,000 armed personnel was assessed by the administration. While the State Election Commission reportedly wants to deploy one armed personnel in each of the 58,467 polling booths, it also wants a company (comprising 80 personnel) of armed personnel to patrol each of the 330 blocks of the state during election.
While the state police can commit some 46,000 armed personnel, it needs an additional 38,000 armed personnel to ensure the patrolling according to the SEC guidelines, sources revealed.
However, Director General of Police Surajit Kar Purakayasta said that the additional forces from the four states would be used only for ‘back up’.
Nevertheless, the Calcutta High Court asked State Election Commission secretary Nilanjan Sandilya to submit a concrete booth-wise concrete security plan, including how many personnel will be deployed in each booth, to the court by May 4.
On the other hand, BJP has decided to go to the court on Monday over alleged inadequate security for the elections. It took the decision after the meeting of opposition parties representatives with State Election Commissioner Amarendram Kumar Singh over the security concerns on Saturday.
Speaking on the meeting, BJP leader Pratap Banerjee said that SEC is not clear about the security arrangements.
Petition of CPM and PDS over security arrangements will be heard in the Calcutta High Court on Monday.