Tight security for Phase IV polls in WB
Last Updated IST
TMC activists at an election campaign of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Bhawanipore constituency in Kolkata on Sunday. PTI
With the fourth phase of polling underway in Bengal, the EC has called for unprecedented security measures across the two districts of North 24 Parganas and Howrah.
More than 67,000 central paramilitary force and around 22,000 state police personnel have been deployed to ensure polls across the 49 seats on Monday are without incidents.
Besides the seats in rural areas of both districts, with at least six seats being on the fringes of state capital Kolkata, special measures were initiated at least 48 hours in advance.
EC sources said that additional measures were taken keeping in mind the violence and complaints of voter intimidation during the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation elections around seven months back. Bidhannagar or Salt Lake, on the eastern fringes of Kolkata, is one of India’s oldest, planned satellite townships and home to mostly an upper middle-class populace, with a number of prominent residents, including former ministers and retired bureaucrats.
Elections in Bidhannagar municipality in October 2015 had witnessed hundreds of cases of electoral malpractices and widespread violence, including attacks on mediapersons. Even some civic bodies in Howrah, which went to polls around the same time, witnessed a similar situation, with most complaints against the ruling TMC. Both the polling districts in the fourth phase of ongoing six-phase Assembly polls are marked “sensitive”, and the EC put in place additional measures like night patrols and thorough search of vehicles at entry-exit points of the two districts.
EC sources admitted to apprehensions that “outsiders” have already entered Bidhannagar and the developing satellite township of Rajarhat New Town, also undergoing the polling process on Monday. “The number of police observers has been increased for the phase.
Police and government officials managing the polls have been warned that they would be held responsible if violence breaks out due to their negligence,” an EC official said.
EC sources further said “large numbers of central force personnel” patrolling the sensitive areas in both districts since Friday night “will move only on the orders of central police observers, who are senior IPS officers from other states and have been deployed by EC as its eyes and ears”.
More than 67,000 central paramilitary force and around 22,000 state police personnel have been deployed to ensure polls across the 49 seats on Monday are without incidents.
Besides the seats in rural areas of both districts, with at least six seats being on the fringes of state capital Kolkata, special measures were initiated at least 48 hours in advance.
EC sources said that additional measures were taken keeping in mind the violence and complaints of voter intimidation during the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation elections around seven months back. Bidhannagar or Salt Lake, on the eastern fringes of Kolkata, is one of India’s oldest, planned satellite townships and home to mostly an upper middle-class populace, with a number of prominent residents, including former ministers and retired bureaucrats.
Elections in Bidhannagar municipality in October 2015 had witnessed hundreds of cases of electoral malpractices and widespread violence, including attacks on mediapersons. Even some civic bodies in Howrah, which went to polls around the same time, witnessed a similar situation, with most complaints against the ruling TMC. Both the polling districts in the fourth phase of ongoing six-phase Assembly polls are marked “sensitive”, and the EC put in place additional measures like night patrols and thorough search of vehicles at entry-exit points of the two districts.
EC sources admitted to apprehensions that “outsiders” have already entered Bidhannagar and the developing satellite township of Rajarhat New Town, also undergoing the polling process on Monday. “The number of police observers has been increased for the phase.
Police and government officials managing the polls have been warned that they would be held responsible if violence breaks out due to their negligence,” an EC official said.
EC sources further said “large numbers of central force personnel” patrolling the sensitive areas in both districts since Friday night “will move only on the orders of central police observers, who are senior IPS officers from other states and have been deployed by EC as its eyes and ears”.