‘Had no details of sensitive booths for deployment of Central forces’

Kolkata: In the wake of all the political parties, including the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), alleging that Central forces were nowhere to be seen on the day of Panchayat elections which resulted in the deaths of several political workers and vote looting, the Border Security Force (BSF) has claimed that the State Election Commission (SEC) did not send them the list of sensitive booths.

With reports claiming more than 12 political workers were dead in the Panchayat poll violence, all parties have been raising the same question of where was the Central force when votes were being looted at the booths or violence rocking districts in this state.

Even as the SEC sources, on Saturday, claimed that 600 companies of Central forces were deployed on the morning of the poll day, they could not confirm the total number of forces deployed. There was also no official statement on the matter.

On Sunday, the BSF DIG, SS Guleria said that the force was not provided with the list of sensitive booths by the SEC, thus preventing the BSF personnel from being deployed in those booths.

According to him, the BSF wrote several letters to the state election body asking for details of the number of sensitive booths.

However, except for July 07, no information was provided for any other day. The BSF was allegedly only informed about the number of sensitive booths.

Guleria further said that BSF personnel were deployed based on the orders of the local administration. In about 4,834 sensitive booths, only Central armed police forces were deployed despite the number of sensitive booths being much more than that.

The Calcutta High Court had directed that the SEC shall requisition the deployment of central forces to work in tandem with the police force of West Bengal for the upcoming Panchayat polls. The Division Bench had directed the SEC to send requisition of the deployment for the central forces “at the first instance” for all districts, which according to SEC are “sensitive”.

Thereafter, it could review the assessment plan submitted by the state and wherever they found inadequacy of state police force, in such areas deploy paramilitary forces.