BHOPAL: As many as 40 companies of Madhya Pradesh’s state paramilitary force, the Special Armed Force (MPSAF), comprising around 4,000 armed police personnel, will be deployed for conducting free and fair elections in West Bengal and Assam.
While 10 companies have already reached their destinations in Assam, 30 more companies boarded special trains for the election duty from Rani Kamlapati (Bhopal), Jabalpur and Gwalior stations on Tuesday evening and are expected to reach the poll-bound northeastern state soon.
The SAF personnel will first be deployed in Assam, which goes to the polls in a single phase on April 9. The same personnel will later move to West Bengal for the two-phase elections scheduled for April 23 and 29.
Confirming the deployment, Madhya Pradesh Police’s Deputy Inspector General (Law and Order), Tarun Nayak, told The New Indian Express that a similar number of 40 SAF companies were deployed in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal during the 2021 Assembly polls.
This is the second-highest number of SAF companies sent for poll duties outside the state in recent years, after the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, when 50 companies were deployed.
The Deputy Inspector General of Police (PTRI-Bhopal), T.K. Vidyarthi, will serve as the nodal officer for the deployed SAF companies in the two poll-bound states. He will be accompanied by four battalion commandants, along with multiple assistant and deputy commandants.
While the 40 SAF companies will be part of the Election Commission’s ground-level security apparatus alongside the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), as many as 27 IAS officers and at least 10 IPS officers are already stationed in the poll-bound states as special poll and police observers.