BHUBANESWAR: Odisha police has made massive arrangements for smooth conduct of the final phase elections with deployment of around 36,000 personnel in different constituencies that will go to polls on Saturday.
The deployment includes 126 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), 86 platoons of Odisha Armed Police and 20,500 civil police personnel, DGP Arun Kumar Sarangi told mediapersons on Friday.
Six Parliamentary constituencies and 42 Assembly seats under nine police districts - Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Cuttack rural and Cuttack urban police district will go to polls in the last phase.
“Many Assembly segments in this phase are sensitive. Four Assembly seats are communally sensitive. The intensity of political hostility having a bearing on law and order situation in the last phase has increased too. Some incidents of pre-poll violence were reported but police response was prompt and action was initiated immediately. The situation is under control now,” Sarangi said.
There are 10,882 polling stations in 8,752 locations. Of them, around 21 per cent are sensitive. Many candidates and political parties have also submitted worry list of booths and CAPF will be deployed after assessing their sensitivity. CAPF personnel have already been deployed in 2,280 critical and vulnerable booths, the DGP said.
About 44 additional SP rank officers, 99 DSPs, 210 inspectors, 2,583 sub-inspectors (SIs) and assistant sub-inspectors (ASIs), 9,476 havildars and constables and 8,083 home guards and gram rakhis have also been deployed to maintain law and order. Police said 36 election-related cases have been registered in the districts going to polls in the fourth phase.