Centre will send additional 485 companies of forces: SEC
Kolkata: The state Election Commission (SEC) on Monday informed the Calcutta High Court that the Home Ministry will be sending additional 485 companies of Central Paramilitary forces for the smooth conduct of the Panchayat polls scheduled to be held on July 8.
The Commission also informed the court that out of 61,636 polling booths, 48,34 that accounts for 7.84 per cent are sensitive.
Out of the 485 companies of forces that has been sanctioned by the Centre on Monday, 323 companies will be entirely Central paramilitary forces that includes 100 companies of BSF, 73 companies of CRPF, 40 of CISF, 30 each of RPF and ITBP and 50 from SSB.
The rest 162 companies will consist of specialized police forces from Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Chattisgarh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Karnataka, Gujarat, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana.
The Commission has requisitioned 822 companies of Central forces from the Home Ministry after the Calcutta High Court’s direction to the poll panel to have all the polling booths covered by Central forces on the day of the election. The Home Ministry had initially sent 22 companies and then requisitions for another 800 companies were sent. The Centre initially agreed to send 315 companies which started arriving in the state from last Thursday.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha was constantly in touch with the Home Ministry and pursuing for the remaining 485 companies.
On Monday, the ministry informed that it will be sending the remaining forces.
The highest number of sensitive booths, according to Commission are located in Murshidabad. However, in terms of percentage the highest number of such booths are in Cooch Behar. Among 5,438 booths, 541 are sensitive in Murshidabad while in the case of Cooch Behar out of 2,385 booths, 385 are sensitive which accounts for 13.29 per cent of the total booths.
In South 24-Parganas where the number of polling booths is the highest among all the districts with 6,226 booths, the number of sensitive ones is 502 which is 8.06 per cent of the
total booths.
