The DGP and home secretary on Monday briefed the state election commissioner about the arrangement of security forces for the May 14 panchayat elections. The briefing was done during a 25-minute-long meeting chaired by state election commissioner A K Singh with Home Secretary Atri Bhattacharya, DGP Surajit Kar Purkayasthta and Additional Director General (law & order) Anuj Sharma, among others, SEC sources said.
Singh asked the officers how the single-phase election can be conducted with just 46,000 armed police personnel. The total strength of state police is 58,000, out of which 12,000 have batons and rest are armed. SEC sources said DGP Purkayasthta told the state election commissioner that after the TMC won over 34 per cent of the seats unopposed, police personnel now only needed to be deployed at 35,000 polling booths as against the actual number of 58,467.
The DGP said that besides the 46,000 armed personnel, forces from Kolkata Police will also be deployed for the polls, SEC sources said. During the meeting, Singh even asked the officers about the progress of deployment of armed forces from other states, sources said. The government had written to five states, requesting them for additional forces.
Singh also reportedly insisted on deploying at least two armed police personnel at sensitive polling booths.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh, however, said the party neither had faith in the SEC nor the police as both had turned into the “back office of the TMC”.
“The SEC was neither serious during the filing of nominations nor is it serious about conducting the polls freely and fairly. They have turned the election into a farce,” he said. The Opposition parties, during a meeting with SEC on Saturday, had expressed grievances over the upcoming single-phase panchayat polls and the security arrangements for the same. The SEC had then said it would talk to the state government and ensure proper security arrangements.