With Kerala going to the polls in less than a week, the Centre has decided to deploy two more companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the State.
The companies are being moved to Kerala from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Teeka Ram Meena said here on Wednesday.
With this, the number of CAPF companies scheduled for deployment in the State for election-related duty has risen to 59.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, 55 companies of Central forces were deployed in Kerala. The Central forces aside, 2,000 personnel from the State police forces of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu will arrive in Kerala ahead of the April 23 election, Mr. Meena said.
10 companies arrive
“Initially, the Central government had agreed to deploy 57 CAPF companies, although the State police had asked for 149 companies. Now they have informed us that two more companies will be arriving,” he said. So far, ten companies of the Central forces have arrived in Kerala for election duty. The majority of the Central forces will report for duty in Kerala after the April 18 polls in Tamil Nadu.
Security agencies have heightened the vigil in the State in the run-up to the election day. As many as 162 locations in the State have been identified as ‘Left wing extremist-affected’, a majority of them falling in the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram, Kannur, Palakkad, and the high-profile Wayanad where Congress president Rahul Gandhi is in the fray.
Politically sensitive Kannur, the Maoist threat in the northern districts, and the volatile scenario created by the Sabarimala controversy have thrust Kerala under the Election Commission’s security scanner this election season.
As many as 817 polling stations across the State have been designated ‘critical.’ There are 425 ‘vulnerable’ and 4,482 ‘sensitive’ polling stations as well.