MillenniumPost
Bengal

EC appoints 3 Police Observers for Alipurduar & Cooch Behar

Kolkata: In a significant step to ensure law and order, the Election Commission has appointed three Police Observers for the two poll-bound districts of Alipurduar and Cooch Behar which go to polls in the first phase on April 11. Cooch Behar has been brought under the surveillance of two police observers.

Earlier, the commission had appointed Binod Kumar - a single observer for both Alipurduar and Cooch Behar. However, on Friday morning, the commission directed observer Kumar to supervise Alipurduar alone, while new officer Alok Kumar Roy was given charge of Cooch Behar.

Later in the evening, K Jagadishan was also appointed as Police Observer for Cooch Behar. The decision was prompted after Special Central Observer Vivek Dubey submitted his report on Friday morning.

Sources in the Bengal Chief Electoral Officer's (CEO) office said that the commission is thinking of deploying another 25 to 30 companies of Central Forces in Alipurduar and Cooch Behar.

At present, 36 companies of Central Forces are available for the polls in the two districts. It has been learnt that top commission officials will lay out the final deployment pattern for the two districts after a meeting on Friday night.

It may be mentioned that a number of polling personnel in North Bengal have written to the CEO, seeking immediate deployment of Central Forces in all the polling stations. They had also threatened to pull out of their election duty, unless adequate forces are deployed to man all the polling stations of these districts.

Meanwhile, the state government has released 29 companies of Central Forces deployed in Jangalmahal, for posting them in the first phase of elections.

Out of 29 companies of force, 11 companies will be deployed in Alipurduar,

with 18 companies in Cooch Behar.

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