Mumbai: NCP chief Sharad Pawar has written a letter to Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh saying that the police staff on duty during VIP visits and rallies should be allowed to sit.

Pawar said the home department should frame guidelines about making it mandatory for the organisers of the events to make chairs available for the police.

Members of the police staff have to stand for hours during the VIP visits and rallies, Pawar said in the letter dated February 10. "They face immense stress for crowd control, maintaining law and order, security during the arrival and departure of VIPs," he said.

"During bandobast, police need to be alert. But the police staff, including women constables and senior officers, should be allowed to sit when public meetings are going on peacefully," he said.