Security beefed up in S Dinajpur for 7th phase polls
BALURGHAT: With 150 booths in 6 Assembly constituencies of South Dinajpur district being declared as sensitive by the Election Commission (EC), security arrangements have been tightened for the seventh phase polls on Monday. There are 1,755 booths covering Balurghat, Tapan, Kumarganj, Harirampur, Gangarampur and Kushmandi, where polling will take place on Monday.
"Of 1,755 booths, 1,305 are main polling stations and 450 are auxiliary polling stations. 194 polling stations are situated in urban areas and 1561 in rural belts. Apart from this, there are a total of 144 sectors in the district," said an official, adding at least 65 women polling stations have been set up.
"Each booth will have deployment of four Central force personnel and a state policeman. Apart from this, the district has 105 Central force mobile quick response teams, which will cover all 144 sectors. As many as 3,000 police personnel along with 110 companies of the Central force will be deployed on Monday," said district Superintendent of Police Debarshi Dutta.
District police have also released two numbers — 8509415273 and 8509454673 — for the common people to inform any poll related incident. Dutta said the two numbers will be operational for two days-before and on the day of polls. "There are a total of 12, 74,866 electorates. Of them, 6, 52,575 are male voters and 6, 22,225 female. As many as 66 transgender voters are there in the district," an official source said. According to him, 8,599 male polling personnel and 968 female polling personnel have been appointed.
On Saturday, District Election Officer and District Magistrate C Murugan and SP Debarshi Dutta conducted a route march in Harirampur, where a group of goons hurled bombs on Thursday night. Among the high-profile candidates, Trinamool Congress' Sekhar Das Gupta will be contesting from Balurghat.
Das Gupta, a veteran lawyer and a former sportsman, will take on BJP's Ashok Kumar Lahiri, an economist and Congress-Left nominated RSP candidate Sucheta Biswas, the former Balurghat civic body chairperson.
