680 companies of Central Forces to be deployed for 5th phase

The Election Commission will deploy 680 companies of Central Forces and 26,000 state police personnel to conduct the fifth phase of election where 1.23 crore voters will exercise their franchise on April 30.

The total number of candidates for the fifth phase of polls will be 349 out of which 43 are women candidates. There will 16,838 EVS for 53 seats.

Election will be held in 53 constituencies spreading over South Kolkata (4 seats), South 24 Parganas (31 seats) and Hooghly (18 seats). The polling will start at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. There are 14,642 polling stations out of which 1,075 are model ones while 390 polling stations will be exclusively manned by women.

In Kolkata, 113 companies of Central Forces will be deployed to conduct free and fair election. There will be 12,000 Kolkata Police personnel. Five companies of Central Forces will be deployed to guard the strong rooms. There are 2,807 polling booths out of which 1,467 have been declared extra sensitive. There are 8.70 lakh voters in Kolkata. In Hooghly and South 24 Parganas the numbers of voters are 42.90 lakh and 72.38 lakh respectively.

There are 140 police pickets and 40 check posts in Kolkata. All motor cycles and cars and lorries coming to and going from the city will be checked.

A senior official of Election Commission said every step had been taken to ensure free and fair election. They said that earlier, steps had been taken to sensitise the voters who have been urged to come to the polling stations and cast their votes without any fear or favour, The Central Forces had conducted route march in different area to build up confidence of the voters. He said there are 2,685 vulnerable hamlets in 53 constituencies. Of these 2,078 are in South 24 Parganas while 906 are in Hooghly and 18 in Kolkata.

He said there would be 950 CCTV cameras in South 24 Parganas while their numbers in Kolkata and Hooghly will be 144 and 960 respectively. Besides these there will be digitised cameras, quick response team, MC mobiles to ensure peaceful election.

There will be 29 observers in south 24 Parganas, 19 in Hooghly and six in Kolkata. There will be two police observers in each state. In addition to this there will be 896 micro observers in Hooghly and 109 in Kolkata.