After ensuring incident-free Assembly elections in the Left-Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected Bhadrachalam constituency last December, the district police are now gearing up for another major task — ensuring smooth conduct of the gram panchayat (GP) polls scheduled to be held later this month.
Surveillance scaled up
Of the 479 GPs spread across 21 mandals in the district, as many as 174 GPs in seven mandals, including the LWE-affected Charla and Dummugudem mandals, will go to the polls in the first phase on January 21.
The police have scaled up surveillance in the GPs located close to the volatile border with Chhattisgarh, sources said. Police officials concerned have reportedly come up with a suggestion that the polling stations situated in five GPs, including Pusuguppa, Tippapuram and Bodanelli, be shifted to nearby locations citing security reasons, sources added.
A similar strategy adopted by the district police paid off in the recent Assembly elections, paving the way for incident-free polls.
Sensitive territory
Pusuguppa, a forest fringe village situated about 5 km from the inter-State border with Chhattisgarh, was in the news in November, 2015, when a group of Maoist rebels allegedly detained six TRS leaders of Bhadrachalam division from the village and kept them “hostage” for around two days in the neighbouring State of Chhattisgarh before releasing them in the forests.
The rebels allegedly resorted to the act in protest against what they called unabated “fake encounters” in Dandakaranya region.
The police department is in the process of devising a comprehensive strategy to implement pre-poll security measures in coordination with the CRPF with a renewed focus on 26 GPs in Charla and 37 GPs in Dummugudem mandals, which share border with strife-torn areas of Chhattisgarh, sources said.
Area domination operations have already begun in the forest fringe areas in Charla mandal as part of pre-poll security plan.